TRAINING THE DRAGON:

TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

by

Andrew Lawrence Master of Publishing (MPub), Simon Fraser University, 2001

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ii

APPROVAL

Name: Andrew Lawrence Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis: Training the Dragon: Transnational Higher

Education in Vietnam Supervisory Committee: Chair: John Harriss

Professor of International Studies

______________________________________

Michael Howard Senior Supervisor Professor of International Studies

______________________________________

John Harriss Supervisor Professor of International Studies

Date Defended/Approved: ______________________________________

Last revision: Spring 09

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iii

ABSTRACT

To improve the quality of life for its citizens, Vietnam adopted market

principles and created a socialist-oriented market economy. This transition has

been largely successful. Rapid economic development and small-scale private

enterprise have improved livelihoods, but a weak higher education system has

not produced sufficiently skilled professionals. In response, Vietnam has

incorporated transnational education into its higher educational system.

Transnational education supplements Vietnam’s existing higher education

system. It helps create an educated workforce, and enhances knowledge

exchange and capacity building within and between educational institutions. But

globalization, the commodification of education, and the impact these are having

on Vietnam’s social and political structures create a tension in Vietnamese policy

making and planning for higher education. How well Vietnam responds to this

tension will be central to its aspirations for economic progress, an educated

society, the social welfare of its citizens and a quality system of higher education.

Keywords: Vietnam; higher education; transnational education

iv

DEDICATION

To my mother and father, for their love and support.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii  Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii  Dedication ......................................................................................................................... iv  Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... v  List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii  

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1  

CHAPTER 1: Global trends in transnational higher education .................................. 6  1.1   The transformation of education ............................................................................... 6  1.2   What is transnational higher education ..................................................................... 8  1.3   International exchange in education ....................................................................... 11  1.4   The trade in higher education ................................................................................. 14  1.5   The commodification of education .......................................................................... 16  

1.5.1   Marketization ............................................................................................... 17  1.5.2   Privatization ................................................................................................ 19  1.5.3   Liberalization ............................................................................................... 22  

1.6   The internationalization of education policy ............................................................ 25  1.6.1   International multilateral organizations ....................................................... 25  

1.7   General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) ................................................. 29  1.7.1   Impact of GATS .......................................................................................... 34  1.7.2   GATS and Vietnam ..................................................................................... 35  

CHAPTER 2: Higher education in Vietnam ................................................................. 38  2.1   History of higher education ..................................................................................... 38  

2.1.1   Colonial history and response ..................................................................... 38  2.1.2   Đổi mới and the economics of education .................................................... 42  

2.2   Economic growth and funding education ................................................................ 46  2.3   Problems and barriers ............................................................................................ 52  

2.3.1   A rise in enrolment ...................................................................................... 54  2.4   Private provision of education ................................................................................. 60  

CHAPTER 3: Transnational higher education in Vietnam ......................................... 65  3.1   Forms of transnational education ........................................................................... 65  

3.1.1   Consumption abroad ................................................................................... 66  3.1.2   Partnerships ................................................................................................ 69  3.1.3   Commercial presence ................................................................................. 73  

3.2   Higher education policy .......................................................................................... 78  3.2.1   Investment policy ........................................................................................ 80  3.2.2   Education policy .......................................................................................... 84  

vi

CHAPTER 4: Training the Dragon ............................................................................... 88  4.1   Plotting a path ......................................................................................................... 88  4.2   Government and society ......................................................................................... 89  4.3   The challenge of education ..................................................................................... 91  4.4   Moving forward ....................................................................................................... 94  4.5   Models for change .................................................................................................. 95  4.6   Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 96  

Reference List ............................................................................................................... 98  

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Selected economic indicators, 1986-2009 ........................................................ 45  Table 2: State budget revenue final accounts, 2000, 2005, 2008 (VN dong,

billions) ........................................................................................................... 47  Table 3: State budget expenditure final accounts, 2000, 2005, 2008 (VN dong,

billions) ........................................................................................................... 48  Table 4: Public spending on higher education, 1999-2002 ($US millions) ..................... 49  Table 5: Public spending on higher education, 1999-2002 (% GDP) ............................. 50  Table 6: Student enrolment and number of teachers in higher education

institutions, 1995-2008 ................................................................................... 55  Table 7: Ratio of students to teachers in higher education institutions, 1995-2008 ........ 55  Table 8: Number of Vietnamese students studying in the U.S., 2000-2010 ................... 68  Table 9: Advantages and disadvantages of collaborative transnational

arrangements between foreign and local partners ......................................... 72   Critical note: Never delete the section break below !!!!! This break enables the differential page numbering between the preliminary Roman numeral section and the main body of your document, in Arabic numbering. If you cannot see the section break line, turn on the “Show/Hide button on your menu bar. Do NOT delete this reminder until just before printing final document.

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INTRODUCTION

Education plays an important role in development. With education, people

can develop specific skills and perception and are able to interact better with

their environment, respond to personal situations, and improve the quality of life

for themselves and others around them. Education instils knowledge and

knowledge disperses superstition “thus making it possible to reason” (Saul 1992:

130). The knowledge and ideas we acquired through education, and the ways in

which we learn, shape the ways our societies develop.

In less than 25 years, Vietnam has transformed itself from a county reliant on

low-skilled labour and agriculture to one with an industrialized and dynamic

economy. Recognizing the dangers of isolation, Vietnam fashioned đổi mới and

adopted a socialist oriented market economy of its own design. This market

economy has proved beneficial to Vietnam: incomes have risen and social

welfare has improved. But its higher education system has not proved sufficient

to respond to increased demand and support the country’s industrialization and

modernization programme. Poor infrastructure, low incentives among teaching

staff, lack of research, and inadequate accreditation systems still exist and

graduates continue to lack the skills that employers demand.

Unable to graduate enough qualified people through its national higher

educational system, Vietnam has encouraged foreign education providers to

help provide training to improve the skills and knowledge of its workforce and

2

build the capacity of its national institutions. The internationalization of higher

education is an opportunity for Vietnamese to join the knowledge society and

share ideas and learning with other education providers around the world. But

trade in transnational higher education is also driven by the economic incentives

inherent in the exchange of goods and services. The provision of higher

education has traditionally been considered the preserve of national

governments that invest in creating a literate and educated society. The rapid

pace of globalization is producing new trade agreements that are altering the

way that goods and services are exchanged, including educational services,

between countries.

As well, the presence of foreign institutions has special significance,

especially in socialist Vietnam that historically has been concerned with security,

national identity, and ideologically with promoting social equity. To some, the

internationalization of higher education is a positive force for building the

capacity of economies in transition, but to others it is a new form of cultural

imperialism (Garrett 2005: 66). It raises several questions into the motives and

objectives of economic and political forces that are able to influence Vietnamese

higher education policy and the rights and obligations of Vietnam to regulate and

coordinate the provision of education to its own citizens.

Vietnam has shown a remarkable ability to innovate and adapt in the face of

globalization. But as it seeks to establish a higher education system that is

attractive to students, serves state expectations, and is recognized

internationally, what will it contend with and what will it need to do to ensure that

3

economic and social ends are balanced and political stability is preserved? This

paper explores the impact that transnational higher education is having on

Vietnam and the ways in which it is helping or hindering Vietnam’s aspirations to

build its economy and integrate globally. It takes the view that transnational

education is a positive force in the development of the country, but that several

intersecting political, social, and economic factors create a tension that can

inhibit development and implementation of higher education policy that supports

effective transnational higher education. In this light, Vietnam is adopting a

careful and gradual approach to incorporating transnational higher education into

its education system to try to ensure that its social, political and economic ideals

are preserved.

This paper is organized into four parts. Part 1 examines the origins and

trends in transnational higher education. Several trends are evident: the pre-

eminence of economic development in our globalized economy has driven the

marketization, privation, and liberalization of trade. The expansion of trade to

include goods and services, including formerly public goods such as education,

has resulted in the commercialization of education and the corporatization of

universities. The globalization of trade has played a major part in the

internationalization of education policy making, moving it from a strictly national

responsibility to one on the international arena. The for-profit exchange in

educational services expands the economic opportunities for developing

countries and improves access to education for their people, but can also

potentially weaken the ability a state to exercise its traditional social

4

responsibilities. Part 2 reviews how higher education has developed in Vietnam

and the social, economic and political influences that have played a part in

forming its higher education system. Historically, education has played a

significant role in Vietnam’s development, often as a political tool. The

globalization of Vietnam’s economy has given it the means to invest in higher

education, but social challenges and political barriers threaten to obstruct long-

term change and development.

Transnational education is a way for Vietnam to get around these problems.

Part 3 examines how Vietnam’s education policy has embraced transnational

higher education, and has made great efforts and commitment to encouraging its

development. The Western or American model is dominant in the global

development of higher education, and is one to which Vietnam aspires. This part

tries to show how higher education is part of a larger domino effect of

globalization, and how the dynamics of transnational higher education are a kind

of mutual relationship: Vietnam is seeking to create a strong national system at

the same time as foreign education providers and looking for economic and

educational opportunities within a rapidly growing country. Both groups face

challenges and risks. Part 4 reviews the impact that transnational education has

had and continues to have in Vietnam and presents some of the ideas that the

future of higher education may bring to Vietnam. The internationalization of

higher education provides opportunities for greater exchange of knowledge and

learning among countries. The demand for education has also created a market

for educational services. Vietnam’s approach seems to be to take things slowly

5

and deliberately. It is a changing field and there are many commentators and

critics and experts with many different views. What seems evident though is that

Vietnam’s explorations in higher education will have broad implications in the

future in many areas of Vietnamese social, economic, and political life.

For this paper, I have drawn primarily on English language sources. In a few

cases, I have referred to Vietnamese language sources such as websites and

am grateful to friends and colleagues for assisting with translations.

Obtaining accurate statistics, especially on finances, has been difficult. For

example, the number of Vietnamese students travelling abroad for study ranges

depending on the source from 15,000 to 60,000 students. The World Bank’s

databank has been a useful source, as has been the General Statistics Office of

Vietnam. But these two sources don’t always agree, for example, on the amount

of funding spent on higher education by the Vietnamese government annually.

This may be in part because the General Statistics Office of Vietnam gives

figures in Vietnamese dong, and the World Bank gives figures in U.S. dollars.

For estimates, I have calculated annual exchange rates as an average of daily

rates from 1 January to 31 December of each year.

6

CHAPTER 1: GLOBAL TRENDS IN TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

1.1 The transformation of education

Education contributes to the intellectual and technological progress of

civilizations. It is a structure by which the knowledge, skills, and values of a

society are preserved and passed within and between generations. The social

and cultural development of countries is largely a product of national systems of

education. Primary and secondary education are generally funded by states and

designed to teach young people basic skills, literacy and raise their awareness of

their own society and of other societies in the world. It provides the means by

which a person can function as part of a society and contribute to its

development. For this reason, primary and secondary education receive

extensive funding and commitment to development.

In most countries, primary and secondary education are priorities. In some

countries, higher education is fully funded by the state or if not, the state may

fund selected students who show exceptional ability. The second of the

Millennium Development Goals aims to ensure that by 2015 all children will be

able to complete a full programme of primary education. The Convention on the

Rights of the Child recognizes the right to free and compulsory primary

education and encourages the development of and access to different forms of

secondary education. Higher (or tertiary) education, on the other hand, although

7

not considered compulsory, is considered a necessary step to forming a highly

educated workforce capable of functioning reasonably effectively in an advanced

economy.

As the demand for education increases in developing countries, it brings

opportunities for broader discussion among global peers and international

exchange of ideas and knowledge. For the individual, it is an opportunity to

acquire advanced specialized skills and increase one’s marketability in a

professional field. In an increasingly technical and material world, in which

competition for markets and jobs rise quickly, possession of a relevant degree in

higher education is considered an advantage and even a necessity in the pursuit

of success and wealth. For a state, especially a developing one such as

Vietnam, a better-educated workforce contributes to a rapidly growing economy

and improves competitiveness in the global marketplace. Higher education,

therefore, is an investment by both the student and the state towards a future

benefit.

But the demand for education and the benefits it bestows also triggers a

transformation of higher education from a publicly provided service into a

tradable commodity and development of an international market for sales,

revenue generation and franchising (Alderman 2001: 48). The globalization of

national economies also brings an interest in the trade in higher education.

Universities are knowledge producing organizations, but no longer the only ones:

“…throughout the world, knowledge and power influence development

processes. Education at all levels plays a critical role as transmitter, reproducer

8

or resistor of a complex weave of knowledge and power relations. Education is

itself becoming transformed through changes in its purposes and priorities”

(Taylor 2007: 1). Thus, in addition to the student and the state, there is a rising

interest by international organizations and educational institutions in the profit-

making and political opportunities of higher education. The globalization of

higher education marks a significant challenge for developing states such as

Vietnam, keen to pursue the opportunities of the knowledge economy but equally

concerned about their autonomy and self-determination.

1.2 What is transnational higher education

Transnational education is not a new phenomenon. Transnational education

refers to the provision of education in which students are located in or come from

a different country than that of the institution providing the education (Global

Alliance for Transnational Education 1997: 1; Ziguras 2003: 91; McBurnie &

Ziguras 2007: 21). Education, or the means to acquire an education, crosses

national boundaries either through people, by technology, or in educational

materials. Transnational education facilitates the formal exchange of knowledge

through educational institutions and practices between countries. Broadly,

transnational education does not discriminate between sharing information for

valuable intellectual and experiential benefits or exchange of educational

services on the market.

There is no consensus, however, on the right terminology for describing the

various impacts that transnational education can have. Leuze, Martens and

Rusconi (2007) use the term ‘internationalization’ to describe the growing

9

influence that international organizations are having on education policy (Leuze,

Martens & Rusconi (2007: 5). The intervention of these largely non-state actors

leads to new forms of international governance that affect national mechanisms

that previously controlled the process and outcomes of education policy making

(Leuze, Martens & Rusconi (2007: 8). Verger (2010) differentiates between

internationalization and transnationalization in higher education.

Internationalization, in his view, refers to the exchange between countries and

recognizes borders and national regulations (Verger 2010: 61). It is concerned

with cooperation and cultural relations and promotes sharing of knowledge

globally. It recognizes the different systems inherent in different countries, yet

seeks the exchange of knowledge through cooperation and foreign relations. On

the other hand, transnationalization, in his view, is concerned with the exchange

or delivery across countries independent of borders and national regulations

(Verger 2010: 61). It focuses on facilitating trade by aiming for a reduction in

barriers and a standardization of systems by which exchanges are undertaken.

Alternatively, Knight (2006) uses the term ‘cross-border education’ to include

“new types of education providers, new modes of delivery, new programmes and

qualifications, new partnerships and network models, increased student mobility

and new national and regional regulations” (Knight 2006: 136).

Despite the disagreements over nomenclature, there is consensus that

globalization and the international expansion of higher education is changing the

views on education. At a recent conference on international education, one

speaker suggested there has been a shift “from cooperation to competition,

10

mutual benefit to self-interest, exchange and partnership to commercial trade

and activity, and, as illustrated by the rise in influence of global rankings, from

capacity building to status- or prestige-building” (Redden 2011). The thrust of the

argument seems to be that internationalization is seeing a change in focus, from

a transitory means for improving the teaching, learning and research objectives

of a university to that of establishing a position in a market for education. We

might ask then, whom does international education serve: the students or the

institution, at for what reason? The globalization of higher education, where the

ideals of higher education intersect with markets and trade, has become a major

dynamic in higher education.

In 1992, Peter Drucker wrote, “[i]n this society, knowledge is the primary

resource for individuals and for the economy overall” (Drucker 1992: 95). For

Drucker, knowledge was the new currency of society and all organizations,

profit-or non-profit, community or corporate, required knowledge in order to

function. Because knowledge changed rapidly, it was vital to ensure that the

ability to change rapidly was integral to an organization’s structure (Drucker

1992: 97). Globalization is changing the ways our societies and individuals

operate and interact. It is also changing the ways in which higher education is

delivered, the mechanism by which it is governed and the purposes to which it is

put. Globalization has opened up developing countries to larger markets and

provided a pool of new international students willing to pay for an education from

a reputable foreign institution. The centrality of higher education in developing

11

countries means that managing the impact of globalization will be an important

task for countries like Vietnam.

1.3 International exchange in education

For centuries, students have travelled abroad to attend universities

overseas, attended lectures by visiting scholars, or taken part in correspondence

courses in which lessons plans were exchanged, prior to the Internet, through

postal systems. Universities in medieval Europe accepted foreign students and

colonizing countries set up educational institutions in their new territories (Verger

2010: 61). The University of Bologna, established about 1088 and the first to

appear roughly in the form we now see universities, specializing in the study and

teaching of Roman law. An important idea in the first universities was that of

academic freedom. The Constitutio Habita, approved by Frederick 1 Barbarossa,

the Holy Roman Emperor, and adopted by the University of Bologna in 1158,

established the university as a place where research could proceed without

interruption from external powers and professors were free to express alternative

views. It also set out the right, rules and privileges of universities including, inter

alia, the right of passage for a traveller in the interests of education and

protection of students from having their property seized as payment of debts

incurred by countrymen (Bologna 2011; Berman 1983: 124, 126).

The movement of knowledge across borders has an ancient history, and has

not been confined to Europe alone. Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great,

was a Macedonian who travelled to Athens in the 4th century BC to study at the

Academy under Plato. Other members of the Academy around Aristotle’s time

12

included Xenocrates who was born in Chalcedon near present day Istanbul and

Archytas from Tarentum in southern Italy. Buddhism migrated into China along

the ancient trade routes, transmitted orally and in writing by monks, missionaries

and lay Chinese. In Luoyang1, a centre of Buddhist translation in the late second

and early third centuries, “a number of Buddhist teachers and translators,

foreigners of diverse origin, were active” (Zürcher 2007: 31). Nālandā, in Bihar

state in central India, was an ancient Buddhist centre of higher learning from the

5th to the 12th century. In its heyday, it reportedly attracted thousands of students

from throughout the Buddhist world (National Institute of Technology Calicut

n.d.). In 1193, it was sacked and destroyed by Muslim invaders, which according

to one Buddhist researcher, was a principle cause the demise of Buddhism in

India (Ahir 1989: 138). Islamic scholars travelled extensively throughout the

Islamic world. Travel then was as much an urge as an obligation. Touati (2010)

recounts a description by Carra de Vaux of the 10th century encyclopedist

Mas‘ūdī who had travelled widely from India in the east to Andalusia in the west,

from the Caspian Sea in the north to Zanzibar in the south:

“In the course of his voyage he personally questioned doctors and savants of various nations, Jews, Persians, Christians, Kurds, and Qarmatians; he conversed or argued with them, bringing to these interviews as much affability as curiosity, as much intelligence and little fanaticism… and it is not without astonishment that sees him combine with the Muslim faith that taste for scientific investigation and that ease in commerce with infidels” (Touati 2010: 120).2

1 Located in present day Henan province of north-central China. 2 Mas‘ūdī, Kitāb al-Tanbīh; trans. Bernard, baron Carra de Vaux as Le livre de l’avertissement et

de la révision (Paris, 1896), vi-vii.

13

In fact, to consider oneself an authority without having travelled was

considered a black mark on one’s professional credibility (Touati 2010: 79).

Many of the earliest medieval universities originated in monasteries and

cathedral schools and were supported by the church (Berman 1983: 126). In the

Middle Ages and afterwards, rulers and city-states in Europe began to establish

institutions of higher learning when they recognized the advantages of educated

scholars and specialists (Grendler 2004: 2). In the U.S., many of the premier

universities such as Harvard and Yale received significant financial support from

private benefactors when established. For most countries now, governance of

higher education has been a national responsibility exercised for social and

cultural as well as economic purposes. A state government invests in education

because an educated population is an economic resource and source of

knowledge: better education brings valuable skills in a workforce, improves

social welfare, raises incomes and attracts investment.

The early history of cross-border higher education is a history of the

exchange of knowledge and ideas between individuals in different areas of the

world. The role of governments in promoting early cross-border educational

exchanges was almost negligible. Regulation of the cross-border education was

not a government concern, other than to allow free passage to travelling

academics. Many scholars in the old world were employed by courts or

governments in official roles because their learning gave them specialized

knowledge of government and foreign affairs, but efforts to acquire education

from abroad depended on the individual. Changes in the perception of education

14

as a commodity that could be purchased rather than a quality that was earned

changed and ushered it into the marketplace. This also changed the nature of

the state’s relationship with citizens.

Economically, the production, coordination, and delivery of cross-border or

transnational higher education services and the different ways in which higher

education crosses borders depends on the factors inherent in its demand and

supply. A demand from students to acquire an education creates a market that

drives its growth and form. As the market for higher education expands, for-profit

opportunities appear. Tuition fees signal education as something can be bought

and sold. A demand for educated professionals and a poor national higher

education system as exists in Vietnam creates an opportunity for non-national

and non-state suppliers to deliver better educational services to students. At the

same time, large established non-profit private institutions and their counterpart

public institutions such as the large state universities and colleges in the United

States possess a resource of high quality education and a mandate for

knowledge sharing. They are often big investors in developing countries.

1.4 The trade in higher education

Trade is an ancient practice. The earliest civilizations traded textiles, food,

and exotic spices, often in exchange for metals that could be transformed into

weapons and armour for protection (Bernstein 2008: 28). Exotic and valuable

goods became the currency of civilizations as they exchanged their surpluses for

what they lacked or desired. Over the ages, the goods changed: slaves, animals,

precious metals, bulk items such as wood and grains, luxury goods, and

15

intelligence (Bernstein 2008: 32) and later, arms, oil, currencies, and drugs.

Where there is a supply and a demand for a product, there is a market. The

transformation from agriculture to market society embodied a change of motive

from ‘subsistence’ to ‘gain’. Markets turned from being an incidental or

subordinate feature of economic life to being a central feature.

Trade pacifies violence and war because modern economic systems

required peace and its preservation in order to operate. Most countries prefer to

trade than make war. In his book, ‘The Great Transformation’ (1944), Karl

Polanyi examines why one hundred years of world peace ended with the

outbreak of World War One. Peace was pursued through ‘haute finance’, such

as that practiced by the international bank of the Rothschilds. High finance

invested in both war and peace, but also in industry, utilities, banks, loans and

private corporations. Banking required peace between the Great Powers (in

which they invested) because traders and investors were generally the first

losers in war. Failure in finance often caused war, such as Turkey in 1857, and

vice versa, war caused failure in international finance. Trade became linked with

peace because it depended on an international monetary system that could not

function in a general war: because the international economic system “needed

peace in order to function, the balance of power was made to serve it. Take this

economic system away and the peace interest would disappear from politics”

(Polanyi 1944: 18). The end of peace in 1914, according to Polanyi, was the

result of an imbalance of power, caused in part by a lack of regulation in markets

that created inequalities between trading partners. Post-industrial revolution

16

thinkers seeking to eliminate disruptions to industrialization advocated market

liberalization and the subordination of human society to self-regulating markets.

The backlash against market liberalization, however, came about through efforts

by people and countries to protect their traditional societies and institutions, but

this opposition interfered with the self-regulation of the market and caused its

own economic and social problems (Polanyi 1944: 3).

In Polanyi’s view, markets and society are bound together. Industry is vital to

society, but self-regulation of the market in which industry operates is not. Self-

regulation concentrates interest not on social wellbeing, but individual gain and

self-interest. Polanyi recognized that for a market society to function, private

property owners need to retain the right to dispose of the means and outcomes

of production and be free from any possibility that their continuity of title will be

restricted in any way (Polanyi 1944: 234). But at the same time, as the market

expands, regulation is needed to curtail the danger of monopoly. “With every

step the state took to rid the market of particularist restrictions, of tolls and

prohibitions, it imperilled the organized system of production and distribution

which was now threatened by unregulated competition and the intrusion of the

interloper who ‘scooped’ the market but offered no guarantee of permanency”

(Polanyi 1944: 66).

1.5 The commodification of education

Traditionally considered a public service, the commodification of education

reconceptualises it as a product that can be sold or exchanged in a market.

Educational institutions and private enterprise have recognized the commercial

17

possibilities inherent in the production and sale of educational services and

materials (Verger 2010: 43). Because there is a demand for higher education,

there is a market for higher education. Large multinational IT companies,

publishers and corporations, based mainly in economically powerful developed

countries, compete in the production and dissemination of learning and

knowledge, often working closely with major universities (Altbach 2001: 2). Small

companies and educational institutions have found niche markets for providing

training and support services in higher education. Governments and business

recognized the economic and social benefits derived when improved and

expanded educational services are available to their citizens.

1.5.1 Marketization

Marketization (or commodification) refers to “an economic process by which

a service or item is transformed into a tradable good” (Sackmann 2007: 157).

Polanyi (1944) dissects markets and economies in a way that helps to

understand their essential natures. “Barter, truck and exchange is a principle of

economic behaviour dependent for its effectiveness on a market pattern. A

market is a meeting place for the purpose of barter or buying and selling”

(Polanyi 1944: 56). Markets were an integral part of human societies: the history

of economies, as Polanyi described it, is that they are embedded in societies and

a market economy can only operate within a market society: “A market economy

must comprise all the elements of industry, including labor, land, and money…

But labor and land are no other than the human beings themselves of which

every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include

18

them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society

itself to the laws of the market” (Polanyi 1944: 71). A self-regulated market

therefore required the separation of economic and political elements of society.

The marketization of education is the application of market ideas and

principles to education. Educational institutions arguably have been involved in

markets for centuries. Regardless of whether an institution is public or private, it

competes with others to attract students, adjusting programmes and prices to

appeal to students’ needs and expectations. The increase in the demand for

higher education can be both a boon and a problem. In many countries,

increased demand can overburdened the ability to supply. This is especially

problematic for public systems of higher education due to limited state funding

(Scherrer 2007: 123). At the same time, a larger market, nationally and

internationally, brings the opportunity to increase returns, raise additional funds

and offset rising costs. This can be a valuable and important resource.

Thus, they have an interest in a market for their competitive advantage in

advanced knowledge and high quality learning resources. They can take

advantage of embedded capital and sell excess ‘educational product’: the

knowledge and skills of educated personnel and the reputation of an institution

are assets that can attract foreign students. Especially, they see a market for

their services in developing countries such as Vietnam that do not have strong

public higher education systems but do have a growing population of students

with the interest to learn from international institutions and the money to pay for

it.

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Verger (2010) describes the process by which education has become a

marketable quantity aided by globalization and liberalization of trade.

Globalization intensifies economic competition at all levels and raises the profit

motive. Education and knowledge are key factors in competition, such that many

nations strive to acquire a competitive knowledge economy. With higher

education at the centre of strategies to achieve economic development, it has

become an investment by states and individuals. But it is also perceived as

product to which a price can be attached. As demand rises, the fiscal capacity of

states to provide higher education falls, public debt in demonized and states look

to investment to provide a source of funding (Verger 2010: 43). Governments are

encouraged to liberalize their economies by reducing tariffs, taxes and subsidies.

As a consequence, privatization and liberalization can work to loosen traditional

state control over education.

1.5.2 Privatization

Privatization refers to a transformation of a nominally public service into one

provided by private interests. Higher education has traditionally been considered

a national public service that the state provides to its citizens through schools,

curricula, and pedagogy. In the dominant Western or American model for higher

education, providers are generally one of three different types: Public state

funded institutions (e.g. provincial or state universities); private non-profit

providers (e.g. foundations such as Harvard University); and private for-profit

providers (Sackmann 2007: 157). Public institutions rely primarily on state

funding for their operations. Among OECD countries, 88 % of funding for

20

educational facilities comes from public sources (Sackmann 2007: 157, 171).

The majority of private education providers in the United States are non-profit.

Private non-profit institutions rely on public funding as well, but also receive gifts

and the oldest have amassed large endowments that in the U.S. supply up to 15

% of their income. They also engage in research, which can draw large amounts

of private funding. While private non-profit institutions seek to ensure the stability

and growth of their endowment capital, this arrangement suggests the dual

nature of many educational institutions. According to Sackmann, “unlike true

businesses, their primary aim is not to increase it for shareholders”, but rather

are in business for ‘ideological’ reasons and to spread certain values rather than

solely pursue a profit motive (Sackmann 2007: 157).

According to Sackmann, private for-profit education institutions are a

relatively new phenomenon (Sackmann 2007: 158). Endowments are a resource

that for tax reasons are not available to private providers in the United States

who rely almost entirely on tuitions fees or other user fees generated directly

from students (Sackmann 2007: 165-6). In a country with a strong tradition of

public funding to higher education, private education is expected to supplement

domestic provision, not displace it. In the United States, for example, private for-

profit institutions hold only 3.6 % of the higher education market (Sackmann

2007: 171). They focus on teaching and are rarely involved in research (which

can bring in funding) or knowledge creation, but instead obtain course plans and

curricula in specific fields from other educational institutions and repackage them

for their own use. The daunting costs of providing competitive quality higher

21

education and the political influence of the large well-endowed universities in the

U.S. prompted Sackmann to observe that a “stable niche for markets will only be

provided if the political elites degrade the state provision privilege and/or if

private suppliers offer education in new fields of the education system previously

not occupied by the state providers” (Sackmann 2007: 157). Thus, for

pedagogical and financial reasons, private providers generally occupy niche

markets in higher education, providing education in fields or subjects in which

public systems are unable or unwilling because of high demand or restricted

public funding.

That universities and other public or non-profit institutions have adopted

corporate practices is not a surprise, nor a bad thing. Education has become a

business: universities and colleges compete for students, faculty, staff and

funding, and students are willing to pay to acquire skills and knowledge.

According to the Times Higher Education, the higher education industry is worth

$US 2.2 trillion worldwide (Times Higher Education 2010). But with government

support falling as funding obligations and lower revenues squeeze budgets,

public higher education is expected to find new ways of funding itself. For some

observers, the corporatization of higher education creates a tension between the

profit making opportunities and social value of higher education. Since the 19th

century when science and research became part of the academic mission,

“[u]niversities were recognized as special institutions by society precisely

because their goals went beyond everyday commerce” (Altbach 2001: 3);

scholars and academics are valued for their knowledge and consulted by

22

governments, business and social organizations. The privatization of education

therefore can be a revitalization of an important social service, but can also raise

questions about the balance between public and private knowledge and the right

of ownership to restrict access to anyone but those with the ability to pay.

1.5.3 Liberalization

Advocates of liberalization push for free markets in which greater

competition between players is believed to enhance efficiency and lower costs

and encourage institutions to adapt and innovate. It defends the introduction of

competition and other principles, rules, logics and free market values in

economic systems. Barriers to liberalization such as border regulations are

dissolved through international agreements such as the General Agreement on

Trade in Services (GATS) that promote “the redefining of territories and

infrastructures related to the production and consumption of services” (Verger

2010: 61). International agreements and organizations have sought to equalize

rules and procedures by which goods and services are exchanged between

countries whereas countries employ tariffs, quotas or other means to protect

national economic, social or other interests even though they may face tariffs,

fees or other barriers to trade in response.

For all its market advantages, critics warn that unregulated liberalization

potentially leaves the provision of education subject to the perils of consumerism

in which attempts to make it more appealing and accessible to consumers can

lower quality, raise corruptive influences, and denigrate the value of

qualifications (McBurnie & Ziguras 2007: 2; Leuze, Martens, & Rusconi 2007: 11;

23

Verger 2010: 44). Competition and deregulation may increase efficiency and

productivity on the part of the education suppliers, but can result in a lack of

planning, duplication of services, a siphoning off of easy, profitable courses, a

loss of valuable non-market courses and “dumbing down” of courses and

qualifications that lower standards (Olssen, Codd & O’Neill 2004: 188).

Greater liberalization of markets has also been accused of restricting the

ability of a country to retain control over it own resources, and trying to separate

the market from society in which it operates, a danger identified by Polanyi.

Liberalization demands a relaxation of government regulations and restrictions to

avoid state control or monopolies that reduce competition (Chang 2008: 13), but

these may be replaced by supranational monopolies that are not answerable to

any single state. Neo-liberalism, for which the Washington Consensus is most

known, advocates an approach to economic and social policy guided by

principles of private enterprise and capitalism. At its extreme, it can also

suppress the authority of a state to regulate national policy, including trade

policy, and transfer that authority to an international body.

Chang (2008) writes that it is not a liberalized policy environment anyway

that attracts foreign direct investment—there are numerous countries with wide

open liberalization policies towards trade—but rather an attractive market and a

productive quality infrastructure (Chang 2008: 99). Investments concentrate

where returns are the highest and least risky, which is why capital tends to flow

to developed countries that are more stable. These require strong state

institutions to formulate effective investment and educational policy that attracts

24

transnational education providers. As a country becomes more stable,

investment opportunities become more attractive.

Market liberalization may also represent a shift of state authority to solely an

evaluative role in which the state creates standards for performance and quality,

but has little or no role in funding or provision (Verger 2010: 44-45).

Responsibility for national educational policy, for example, is reduced and

superseded by the authority of a multilateral agreement such as GATS whose

rules can supersede national regulation. National higher education providers in

developing countries, often at a disadvantage in terms of funding, experience

and quality of facilities, are forced to compete with larger and better-equipped

foreign providers. More importantly, it may open up national education policy to

influence by non-national international organizations that may have interests that

may not align with national educational strategies. An April 2008 diplomatic cable

purportedly from the US Embassy in Hanoi and leaked to the Internet in 2011

outlines American interests in Vietnam’s education system as a lever to

increasing its influence upon the country: “Adding new foreign assistance

resources now and supporting the creation of a wide range of strategic public-

private partnerships will maximize American influence on Vietnam’s educational

system and thus on the future shape of Vietnamese society” (United States

Government 2008: 1).

Gainsborough (2004) suggests Vietnam is well aware of the political nature

of liberalization. Pressure from western countries and international organizations

to liberalize and withdraw from their economies, especially following the Asian

25

crisis, were seen by Asian countries as efforts to force open markets for Western

benefits. In Vietnam, it was “regarded suspiciously as possible attempts by the

West to undermine state power” (Gainsborough 2004: 47).

1.6 The internationalization of education policy

Leuze, Martens and Rusconi (2007) attribute the changes in education to

two main trends: one, the increase in marketization within education and two, the

growing influence of international or multilateral organizations in educational

policy making (Leuze, Martens & Rusconi 2007: 3). Globalization expands

markets internationally and integrates nations into an international system of

trade rules. In turn, international organizations and governments have

recognized the opportunities in the marketization of higher education for

influencing government policy on higher education for commercial or geopolitical

objectives. As a result of these trends, they argue, “the state is no longer the

only player which designs and shapes educational policy, rather international

and market actors are increasingly infiltrating its domain of education policy

making. Contemporary governance in education is accordingly spread around a

whole set of different actors, which changes their relationship to each other”

(Leuze, Martens & Rusconi 2007: 4).

1.6.1 International multilateral organizations

At the end of World War Two, two significant events took place that laid the

foundation for international cooperation in trade and development. In 1944, the

Bretton Woods Conference brought 44 Allied nations together to form a more

26

stable mechanism for international monetary cooperation and resolve short-term

exchange issues. The outcome was an agreement establishing the International

Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the General Agreement on

Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The

following year, the United Nations (UN) was established taking the place of the

previous League of Nations. The purpose of the UN was to reduce conflict

among the world’s nations and build dialogue as a means for resolving

disagreement through cooperation on international law, social and economic

development and human rights. Numerous organizations under the banner of the

UN carry out its multilateral mandate in humanitarian assistance, sustainable

development, peace building and peacekeeping, promoting democracy, and

support to minorities and marginalized persons. The mandates of different

international organizations vary in their pursuit of different objectives including

the internationalization and transnationalization of higher education.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

addresses poverty and promotes peace and sustainable development through

intercultural collaboration and dialogue. Although many UN organizations

support education of children, UNESCO is the only one with a mandate in higher

education. UNESCO’s education strategy works to shape education policy

(Leuze, Martens & Rusconi 2007: 5) through capacity building, exchange of

ideas, promotion of good practices and development of guidelines and

standards. UNESCO sees universities and other institutions of higher education

as core participants in the development of societies (UNESCO 2008: 2), but also

27

recognizes the opportunities and challenges that new information technologies,

trade liberalization, and borderless or transnational education are creating for

governments, institutions, policy-makers, educators, and students. “Nation-states

are no longer the sole providers of higher education and the education

community no longer holds the monopoly on provision of education” (UNESCO

2011). In a study of the impact of transnational higher education on four

countries, UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning (2004) concluded that

governments are taking active measures to direct the rise of transnational higher

education towards social and economically beneficial outcomes through effective

national regulatory and quality assurance regimes, but also they must keep up to

date and aware of developments and be sensitive to local situations and

demands (Middlehurst & Woodfield 2004: 2-3).

The World Bank is the world’s largest source of financial and technical

development assistance. In 1960, the International Development Association

(IDA) was formed and combined with the International Bank for Reconstruction

and Development (IBRD) to create the World Bank. The World Bank mobilizes

financing from international capital markets as well as richer member countries

to provide loans, grants and credits to fund a wide array of projects in developing

countries such as infrastructure, health, public administrative, natural resource

management and financial and public sector development (World Bank 2011b).

In 2009, it provided $46.9 billion of funding through more than 200 projects in

140 countries (World Bank 2009a: 57). The International Development

Association (IDA) provides ‘soft’ financing and assistance to the poorest high-risk

28

countries with little access to funds. Organizations such as the World Bank are

not transnational education providers in the sense that they establish

partnerships or facilities to design and deliver educational services, but they do

design education programmes and exercise influence in educational policy in

developing countries. The World Bank has adopted education as a core activity

even though it is peripheral to its mandate of financial and technical assistance

(Mundy 2007: 21). The World Bank’s Higher Education Development Policy

Program (HEDPP), for example, aims “to produce graduates with the knowledge

and skills that meet labour market demands, and support the national innovation

system through relevant basic and applied research” (World Bank 2009b: 2). The

World Bank (along with the OECD) “advise low-income and small countries to

import tertiary education” (Scherrer 2007: 126) and concentrate government

spending on basic education which yields “the highest social returns” (Scherrer

2007: 125).

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was

established in 1961, but its roots lie in the US-funded Marshall Plan created to

facilitate reconstruction of Europe after World War 2. The OECD’s mandate is to

build prosperity and social well being through economic growth and financial

stability among it partnership of 34 advanced (and a few emerging) economies.

The importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ to economic development has

underscored the OECD’s efforts to address education policy (Leuze, Martens &

Rusconi 2007: 5), and in this capacity has provided advice to developing

countries such as Vietnam.

29

In the post-Washington Consensus era, international organizations would

appear to be giving more attention on issues of concern to individual states in

multilateral agreements. Many of these appear under the umbrella of

governance programmes (Masina 2006: 151). However, their ability to exercise

significant influence in the formation of international development policies that

impact upon national educational policies, and a lack of strategic unity among

international organizations has meant their nature and objectives for higher

education can be contradictory, confusing or even obstructive for developing

countries. As well, the realization that educational cooperation could further

geopolitical goals has led to friction among international organizations and

governments (Mundy 2007: 21; Leuze, Martens, & Rusconi 2007: 6). Leuze,

Martens, & Rusconi (2007) argue that the objectives of international

organizations can hide specific ideological goals that may not be consistent with

national goals (Leuze, Martens, & Rusconi 2007: 6). The World Bank

acknowledges that liberalization, while reducing poverty, also increases

inequality and that outcomes such as rising tuition cause problems for students

from poorer backgrounds.3

1.7 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)

A third multilateral organization with significant influence on the development

of transnational higher education is the World Trade Organization (WTO). The

WTO was a successor organization created from the General Agreement on 3 Rising tuition costs are as much a problem in developed countries such as the UK where some

critics feel that plans to double the fees universities could charge may result in poor students unable to attend, higher debt on graduation or the creation of two levels of institutions, one for the rich and another for the not-rich. (“University students,” 2010).

30

Tariffs and Trade to act as a forum for discussions aimed at reducing obstacles

to trade. The most significant international agreement with respect to higher

education and trade has been the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in

Services (GATS), which has heavily impacted both the marketization of higher

education and the internationalization of education policy and subjected

education to the rules and regulations that govern international trade.

GATS and the WTO were both outcomes of the Uruguay Round of trade

negotiations that lasted from 1986 to 1994. GATS came into force in 1995,

establishing an international framework of principles and rules for trade in

services including educational services. Trade in services gain prominence when

services were recognized as an important, productive and growing sector

(Verger 2010: 22). While services account for about 60 % of employment and

production, they only account for 20 % of trade in terms of balance of payments

(WTO 2011). Under GATS, educational services formally became a tradable

commodity even though, according to Verger, during negotiations that created

GATS, GATS staff and WTO member countries gave little thought to education

until the mid-1990s (Verger 2010: 33).

The GATS text does not specifically define ‘service’ although it states that all

services are included in GATS with a few exceptions.4 UNESCAP defines a

‘service’ as “an economic activity that adds value either directly to another

economic unit or to a good belonging to another economic unit” (UNESCAP

2000: 12). The provision of a service as defined by the GATS agreement occurs 4 Exceptions include some air transport services, financial services, maritime transport services,

telecommunications and movement of natural persons.

31

through one of four modes: “(a) from the territory of one Member into the territory

of any other Member; (b) in the territory of one Member to the service consumer

of any other Member; (c) by a service supplier of one Member, through

commercial presence in the territory of any other Member; (d) by a service

supplier of one Member, through presence of natural persons of a Member”

(WTO 1994, 285-286). Services under GATS are divided into twelve sectors of

which education services are one. Educational markets are in turn divided into

five areas: primary, secondary, tertiary, adult and other.

The objective of GATS is to create a level playing field for international trade

in services. Based on the objectives outlined by the earlier GATT agreement,

GATS aims to establish “fair and equitable treatment of all participants (principle

of non-discrimination); stimulating economic activity through guaranteed policy

bindings; and promoting trade and development through progressive

liberalization” (WTO 2011). Despite the rules and regulations, there are different

interpretations of what the rules mean. For example, GATS rules present

conditional and unconditional obligations. Countries that make commitments to

trade in educational services agree to open up specific service sectors to foreign

competition. Once a commitment is made, it is difficult although not impossible to

retract. Because membership in the WTO means access to members markets

for trade, then the advantages would appear to outweigh the disadvantages and

many governments see value in including education as part of multilateralism

(Mundy 2007: 21).

32

GATS, however, is not without its controversy or its detractors. Its aim for a

‘common market’ for education is an effort to systematize exchange in the trade

in education services. While GATS affirms that the same rules are applicable to

everyone, it does not recognize the different levels or stages of development of

the partners. A historical review of economic development has noted that now-

developed countries initially employed barriers to trade (tariffs, protectionism,

etc.) to promote national industry. Then when these were secure, these same

countries opened up, proclaimed the merits of free trade and expected countries

that were still developing to do the same. With GATS, developed economies

have barred developing countries from adopting this model, insisting on free

trade from the outset and potentially forcing developing countries into an

unbalanced and unfair trade regime that obstructs development.

Ha-Joon Chang (2008) offers a critique of this problem by invoking the

notion of the “level playing field” and that the players may be unequal to begin

with. Using a sports analogy, unequal teams are not allowed to compete against

each other, or any inequalities are corrected through ‘handicaps’. In the interests

of ‘fair trade’, however, developing countries are not allowed to have any

advantage such as extra policy tools, tariffs or subsidies. Chang argues that fair

trade is a myth, as stronger countries will always seek to protect their assets and

acquire an advantage over competitors and opponents. Global economic

competition, governed by trade rules, according to Chang (2008: 218), is a game

of unequal players and is therefore uncompetitive.

33

It also means that national education policies can be subject to rules beyond

national borders. Article 1 of GATS states that all services are subject to GATS

except those “supplied in the exercise of government authority” (WTO 1994:

286). GATS defines this phrase as “any service which is supplied neither on a

commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers” (WTO

1994: 286). Because few higher education systems are entirely public—almost

all, including Vietnam's, allow for non-governmental suppliers or charge fees of

some kind—their existence renders such a provision void (Knight 2006: 36). For

this reason, GATS has been criticized as a means for stronger developed

countries to use their greater resources to secure control of an important function

of smaller developing countries. According to Scherrer (2007), the main purpose

of GATS has not been to advance the commodification of education, but rather

to secure the work of the international organizations and “lock-in the gains made

in the commodification of education” (Scherrer 2007: 117).

GATS overlaps with other international agreements, but according to Verger

(2010), a document that includes legally defined obligations takes precedent.

The 1998 world declaration on higher education by UNESCO or the 2005

guidelines on the provision of cross-border education by UNESCO and the

OECD, for example, “may be neutralized by the WTO system since they do not

contemplate the capacity to fix binding rules which must obligatorily be complied

with by the signatory countries” (Verger 2010: 59). Only a UNESCO convention

could trump GATS, but no such agreement on higher education by UNESCO

members has been approved (Verger 2010: 59).

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1.7.1 Impact of GATS

For some critics, therefore, GATS is a top-down arrangement that requires

that signatories accept in advance any decisions taken as a group according to

prior agreement (Barblan 2002: 79). This tends to ignore, as Chang pointed out,

that different countries are at different stages of development and require

different interventions at different times. By submitting to GATS, individual

developing countries are required to abide by all collective decisions even if they

are not in their national interest. For example, the concept of most favoured

nation specifies that any concession offered to one partner is automatically

applicable to all partners. Foreign education providers with greater resources at

their disposal will have a competitive advantage. Second, higher education itself

often has no voice at the negotiation table. The responsibility for negotiating

GATS is usually carried out by national departments for trade with little

consultation with other governmental departments or with the institutions such as

universities that will be closely affected by the GATS (Barblan 2002: 88). Such a

homogenous approach to trade and liberalization can neglect the cultural and

social differences that higher education is meant to promote and reflect.

While the threat of GATS is great, its impact in education has been modest.

Since 1995, only 40 WTO member countries have made commitments in higher

education and only 49 have made commitments in any area of education

covered by GATS. There is no legal requirement under GATS for a country to

privatize any service. “The limitation of the WTO-GATS process from the

beginning was that most national governments had little intrinsic interest in

35

holistically remaking education as a tradable commodity. Most education is

produced in non-commercial settings; and governments want to retain control of

higher education and research sectors because they are seen as significant to

national competitiveness and development, and cultural identity” (Marginson

2009: 8). Signs of disagreement among nations are evident in that negotiations

have dragged for years: the current Doha round has been in process since

January 2000.

1.7.2 GATS and Vietnam

GATS introduces some challenging questions for Vietnam as it seeks, as all

countries do, to take advantage of the benefits of international trade, yet keep

control of those services that it considers of national importance. Some issues

such as environmental pollution or human trafficking have an international

impact across borders and responding to these effectively requires regulatory

institutions on an international scale. In some parts of the world, efforts have

been made to create systems for collaborative governance that sets criteria and

guidelines for jurisdictions (national, provincial or municipal) to cooperate to

solve cross-border problems that cannot be solved unilaterally. Other concerns,

however, are national in focus because they are directed by a government

responding in the social or cultural interest of a specific group of people. Thus, is

it appropriate to subject education, a national concern, to global market rules?

Do cultural and social differences between nations justify different educational

systems? And if so, what rules, and what rights do a government have to

determine the extent of those rules?

36

Vietnam has benefitted from its membership in the WTO; it has a large

labour force that is increasing its knowledge and ability to take on many tasks for

less cost than developed countries can perform. But developing countries such

as Vietnam also face pressure at each negotiation round to gradually broaden

their commitments and open up their countries for investment from abroad.

Varghese (2007) argues that because trade is motivated by profit, regulatory

frameworks are needed to support national concerns in promoting education.

“Governments planning to enter GATS need to reassure their citizens that a

reliable regulatory framework to protect their national interest is in place.”

(Varghese 2007: 20)

Shifts in educational policy are influenced by particular ideologies within

societies and markets. The globalization of higher education is characterized by

the global circulation of ideas, multilateral cooperation ventures, the rise of

ideologies of conformity such as international conventions based on consensus

between parties (e.g. GATS), and coercive strategies such as structural

adjustment programmes, all of which have contributed to “making the social

efficiency goals of education become dominant over its more traditional social

and cultural concerns with the development of the individual and the needs of

the community.” (Rizvi, Engel et al 2005: 55). Thus, a market for education can

be considered a positive force for building the capacity of economies in

transition, or a new form of cultural imperialism that reduces education to just

another commodity. As education is increasingly privatized and liberalized and

new markets to foreign providers open up, how is this going to affect a

37

developing country such as Vietnam that has a poor public system, a ripe market

for growing private for-profit sector and weak institutions necessary to provide a

robust governance and regulatory environment at the international level (Masina

2006: 127)?

38

CHAPTER 2: HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

Vietnam’s history has shaped its political, social and economic development.

Colonization, war, and social upheaval led to a period of communist government

and international isolation. Eventually, recognizing the dangers of isolation and

anticipating the benefits of joining the global economy, Vietnam fashioned đổi

mới and adopted a socialist styled market system of its own design. This system

has proved beneficial to Vietnam, building an economy that has improved the

social welfare of its citizens. Developing a higher education system to support a

changing economy and society is proving a different kind of challenge.

2.1 History of higher education

2.1.1 Colonial history and response

The shape of modern Vietnam can be viewed as the outcome of centuries of

international influence through conflict, philosophy, and colonialism. Periods of

Chinese rule were interspersed with independence campaigns by various

Vietnamese dynasties. Buddhism in early Vietnam stressed mental and physical

self-discipline and proper conduct, driven by the notion of compassion for

humankind (Asia Society 2008). By the 11th century, however, Confucian

philosophy, emphasizing the painstaking acquisition of doctrinal knowledge,

played a central role in early education in Vietnam, and over time has helped to

shape people’s attitudes and beliefs. Classical ‘Vietnamese’, known as ‘chữ

39

nôm’, used Chinese characters and was written only by elites. The current

Romanized form of the language, known as ‘quốc ngữ’ (literally: ‘national

language’) was designed by Europeans in the 17th century. The rigours of the

colonial periods have branded themselves on the Vietnamese psyche as much

as invading ideologies have influenced the values and perceptions of education.

During the colonial period of the 19th century, French replaced Chinese as

the official language in government and education, and French colonialism

altered the structure and direction that education would take. As during the

Confucian period, higher education was linked to governments, power, and the

education of elites, but this time from one serving the Vietnamese dynasties to

one that would be pliable and serve French colonial interests and needs. French

was taught only in a few French schools that few Vietnamese attended and only

served to further disassociate Vietnamese from power in their own country.

French colonial policies “contributed not only to the demise of Confucian

institutions, but also to the rise of a new and increasingly radicalized anti-colonial

intelligentsia, members of which would ultimately overturn French rule” (London

2011: 9). An upsurge of rebellion took hold led by young Vietnamese students

who revolted against colonial domination and rejected traditional Confucian

ideas and institutions in favour of liberal and socialist ideas (London 2011: 12).

Some of these students, including Nguyễn Sinh Cung who later became Hồ Chí

Minh, travelled overseas where in the course of their studies they were

introduced to revolutionary political ideas and military training (London 2011: 12).

Opposition groups such as the communist Việt Minh promoted literacy and

40

universal education through clandestine schools, even as the underground

revolution continued, as a means of supporting revolutionary values (London

2011: 12).

After the installation of the Vichy regime in France during World War Two,

the Japanese occupied Vietnam. When the Japanese withdrew in 1945, the Việt

Minh under Hồ Chí Minh occupied Hanoi in the north and declared Vietnamese

independence. The communist leadership that took power in the northern

Democratic Republic of Vietnam pursued universal education and health as a

means to bolster state power. As London notes, “The close relation between

education systems and processes of state formation owes in large measure to

fact that education systems can be multifunctional instruments of state power.

States can use education to promote diverse imperatives, including social order

and consent, economic growth, and welfare” (London 2011: 13).

Despite great efforts, rates of illiteracy and student progress rose and fell.

The state in northern Vietnam provided primary and secondary education and

sought to expand accessibility to higher education, but could invest little to

improve its quality (Altbach 2004: 19). Woodside (1983) argues that a key

element in the difficulties the Communist government faced in the early years

was “the general intellectual failure of Vietnamese leaders to pay sufficient

attention to the differences between developed and underdeveloped economies,

particularly with respect to their use of the labour force” (Woodside 1983: 403). A

government proclamation in 1979 stated that education was needed to achieve

economic growth and reforms continued to expand the school systems including

41

development of special schools for technical and vocational training. But as

Woodside (1983) notes, “economic expansion and educational progress are

interdependent” (Woodside 1983: 424): appropriate schooling that brings new

skills and knowledge should be concurrent with an economic environment in

which to apply it.

Woodside suggests two other factors that may be specific to a communist

regime without a proper private sector (Woodside 1983: 413). First, a dedication

to education and learning has always been a central theme in the Vietnam

Communist revolution and the leadership continued to invoke the Confucian

traits of love of learning among the people to support their revolutionary aims

(Woodside 1983: 404). But the “ancient ethos of mandarin careerism” that

Confucianism promoted persisted in the preference of students for a general

middle school education that they believed would lead to a high-status position in

the bureaucracy, rather than pursue vocational training that would have offset a

lack of skilled labour (Woodside 1983: 411). Second, the Vietnamese

Communists could not reconcile their ideological values of equity with the need

to produce an elite and talented company of professionals and bureaucrats. For

example, an antiquated agricultural cooperative system run by people with little

education was not attractive to students trying to escape the low-class heavy

manual labour of farming (Woodside 1983: 412-13). There is inequality in every

society: the general consensus to not allow it to be excessive or divisive.

The experiences of the Communist party during the war years helped it to

prepare for mass mobilization and to enforce its political authority. After 1975

42

and the unification of north and south Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of

Vietnam, universal access to health and education remained a priority for the

communist government, but it continued to enforce an authoritarian Marxist-

Leninist-oriented emphasis on the submission of all social activities to the

interests of the Party through the collectivization of production and the

elimination of private property (London 2009: 378). Capitalism was viewed as

wasteful, inefficient, exploitive, anti-democratic and promoting the individual over

the collective (London 2009: 380). A national soviet-style system of education

was cultivated which saw a rapid increase in enrolments through policies for

equitable access as well as a major reduction in illiteracy. The vision was in full

flower, but in time the reality became less fragrant. Economic realities

undermined political aspirations. Social services, such as education and health,

continued to depend upon economic resources generated by state economic

activity: when these were restricted or operated inefficiently so were finances for

improvement and social service degenerated (London 2004: 129-30). A veto by

the U.S. barred Vietnam from access to development funds from the World

Bank, the IMF and the ADB until 1993 (Klump 2007: 121) By the time the

economy started showing signs of life in the late 1980s, the health and

educational services were in crisis (London 2004: 130).

2.1.2 Đổi mới and the economics of education

Prior to 1986, Vietnam was a strict communist agrarian society. The severe

fiscal crisis that threatened the livelihoods of Vietnamese convinced the

leadership that change was necessary. Recognizing the importance of raising

43

the living standards of its citizens, Vietnam introduced đổi mới in 1986, a

comprehensive liberalization of all sectors of its centralized and closed economy

that redirected the country from an agricultural and resource-based economy

towards a market society. Literally meaning ‘renovation’, đổi mới describes the

transition from a poorly performing, impoverished collectivist economy to a more

productive market-oriented economy through a massive industrializing

programme, greater encouragement of private enterprise, and integration into

the world economic system. Under this economic model, private businesses

engaging in the production of goods and services were allowed to operate

alongside state and collectively run enterprises and employ market practices in

the distribution of their products. The objective was to raise production and

quality of output and increase the well-being of citizens, while at the same time

adhering to certain socialist ideals in order to reduce the negative aspects of the

capitalist market economy such as the sole pursuit of profit, exploitation, and a

large divide between rich and poor (Voice of Vietnam 2003). Thus, it was an

important change in the outlook of Vietnamese leadership that recognized for

Vietnam to integrate into the world economy it needed to adopt an approach that

would expose Vietnam to new skills, ideas, and knowledge.

For Vietnam, đổi mới brought dramatic social, political and ideological

changes and a major re-evaluation of socialist principles: it was a system that

aimed to adopt principles of the market, but guided by the doctrine and

leadership of Vietnam Communist Party (VCP). Over the twenty years after đổi

mới was introduced, Vietnam become one of the fastest growing economies in

44

the world. Between 1990 and 2008, its GDP grew on average 7.4 % per year

(World Bank 2011c). Industrialization and manufacturing increased dramatically

driven largely by low-cost labour and foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade

volume rose each year. Foreign direct investment increased from $US 40,000 in

1986 to over $US 10 million in 1987 and a decade high of over $US 2.2 billion by

1997 (World Bank 2011c). Per capita income between 1995 and 2007 rose from

$US 260 to $US 835 and the country was expected to enter middle-income

status soon after 2010 (World Bank 2008a: 1). Between 1990 and 2005, the

share of agriculture as a per cent of GDP fell from 39 % to 21 % while that of

industry rose from 23 % to 41 % (World Bank 2011c). In 2007, Vietnam became

the 150th member of the WTO. The World Bank has praised Vietnam for having

achieved four out of ten targets related to the Millennium Development Goals

and suggested it is likely to achieve four others by 2015 (World Bank 2008a: 6).

As we have seen earlier, education and economic development are

intimately interlinked. The infrastructure and policies advocated by early

communist governments, however, were not effectively designed to encourage

the mutual relationship between educational development and economic

progress. Future growth for Vietnam was dependent on a high quality workforce

that is better skilled and trained and possesses better quality language skills.

With few natural resources, higher education was seen as a means of

transforming from an agricultural society to a market society by building

intellectual and technical resources that could contribute to improving production

and trade on the world market. At the same time, an educated workforce

45

Table 1: Selected economic indicators, 1986-2009

1986 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

GDP (current $US, billions) 26.34 52.93 60.93 71.11 90.27 97.18

Population, total 60,249,000 83,106,300 84,136,800 85,154,900 86,210,781 87,279,754

GDP growth (annual %) 2.8 8.4 8.2 8.5 6.3 5.3

GDP per capita (current $US) 437 637 724 835 1,047 1,113

Gross national expenditure (% of GDP)

104 105 115 115 110

Adjusted net national income (current $US)

40,977,017,474 46,693,143,778 53,390,932,673 60,542,712,081 71,491,328,013

Adjusted net national income (annual % growth)

7 8 6 -3 18

External balance on goods and services (% of GDP)

-10 -4 -5 -16 -15 -10

Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)

7 69 74 77 78 68

Agriculture, value added (% of GDP)

38 21 20 20 22 21

Foreign direct investment (BoP, current $US)

40,000 1,954,000,000 2,400,000,000 6,700,000,000 9,579,000,000 7,600,000,000

Note. World Bank (2011c). World Development Indicators. Retrieved from: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators

46

required an economic environment in which to grow. A market society would give

incentives and opportunities for the education system itself to improve and

greater revenue from economic investment could provide resources to fund the

educational infrastructure.

Vietnam’s rapid economic development has supplied the state with the

financial resources to undertake many of the social goals it was unable to

implement before đổi mới. Economic development appears to increase the

economic stability that the Vietnamese Communist Party needs to ensure social

harmony, but this is a false sense of security. Institutions remain weak because

state management by the political elite is too restrictive. The problems of

corruption, poor coordination, and conflict within Vietnam’s higher education

system endure.

2.2 Economic growth and funding education

Substantial economic growth following đổi mới brought a huge financial

windfall to the Vietnamese government. Between 1990 and 2008, adjusted net

national income increased from $US 5 billion to $US 60.5 billion (World Bank

2011c). In 1989, Vietnam became a net exporter of rice and by 2006 the world’s

third largest rice exporter after Thailand and India (International Rice Research

Institute 2011). The main sources of government revenue came from customs

and income taxes, and revenue from state owned enterprises. According to the

General Statistics Office of Vietnam, total state budget revenue increased from

VND 90.7 trillion ($US 4.4 billion) in 2000 to 416.8 trillion ($US 20.1 billion) in

2008 (General Statistics Office of Vietnam [GSO Vietnam] 2011). The benefits of

47

the market system accrued to individuals was well. Agricultural land was

allocated to families who could plan and work crops for themselves and sell the

products at market prices. This raised family incomes and funds for investing in

business or education. Expenditures continued to exceed income, however, so

overseas development assistance (ODA) provided an external resource of

capital to maintain a high growth rate.

Table 2: State budget revenue final accounts, 2000, 2005, 2008 (VN dong, billions)

2000 2005 2008

TOTAL (VN dong, billions) 90,749 228,287 416,783

Domestic revenue (Exc. oil revenue) 46,233 119,826 229,786

Revenue from state owned enterprises 19,692 39,079 68,490

Revenue from foreign invested enterprises

4,735 19,081 43,848

Revenue from non state sector 5,802 16,938 43,524

Agricultural land use tax 1,776 132 98

Tax on high income earners 1,831 4,234 12,940

License tax 934 2,797 7,404

Revenue from lottery 1,969 5,304

Gasoline fee 2,192 3,943 4,517

Fees 2,713 4,192 6,653

Revenue from land and houses 2,823 17,757 38,202

Other revenue 1,766 6,369 4,110

Oil revenue 23,534 66,558 88,800

Custom duty revenue 18,954 38,114 90,922

Export and import duties, special consumption tax; Surtax on import

13,568 23,660 59,927

VAT on imports 5,386 14,454 30,995

Grants 2,028 3,789 7,275

Note. General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011). Statistical Data. Retrieved from http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=491

48

Table 3: State budget expenditure final accounts, 2000, 2005, 2008 (VN dong, billions)

2000 2005 2008

TOTAL EXPENDITURE (VN dong, billions)

108,961 262,697 494,600

Of which:

Expenditure on development investment

29,624 79,199 135,911

Of which: Capital expenditure 26,211 72,842 124,664

Expenditure on social and economic services

61,823 132,327 258,493

Of which:

Expenditure on education and training

12,677 28,611 63,547

Expenditure on health care 3,453 7,608 19,918

Expenditure on population and family planning

559 483 1,072

Exp. on science, technology and environment

1,243 2,584 7,744

Expenditure on culture and information

919 2,099 2,713

Expenditure on broadcasting and television

717 1,464 1,550

Expenditure on sports 387 879 1,126

Pension and social relief 10,739 17,747 50,265

Expenditure on economic services 5,796 11,801 21,538

Expenditure on general public administration

8,089 18,761 32,855

Addition to financial reserve fund 846 69 152

Note. General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011). Statistical Data. Retrieved from http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=491

Đổi mới and the introduction of a relatively free market into Vietnam provided

incentives and revenue for investment into higher education, but difficulties

remained. Government expenditure on social and economic services from 2000

to 2008 averaged 52.88 % of its total annual budget, ranging from a high of 56.7

49

% in 2000 to a low of 50.37 % in 2005 (GSO Vietnam 2011). Government

expenditure on education and training (as part of social and economic services)

between 2000 and 2008 increased from VND 12.7 trillion to VND 63.5 trillion, a

figure that has remained consistently between 10.89 and 13.46 % of total annual

government spending (GSO Vietnam 2011), and higher than any other budget

line in social and economic services spending. According to World Bank figures,

Vietnam spent $US 144 million on universities and colleges in 2002, about 10%

of its total education budget annually on higher education (World Bank 2008b:

70-1).5 The World Bank follows Vietnam’s distinction between training and

education; the latter term it reserves for primary and secondary schooling (World

Bank 2008b: 71).

Table 4: Public spending on higher education, 1999-2002 ($US millions)

1999 2000 2001 2002

GDP 28.68 31.17 32.51 35.08

Total education expenditure 952 1,153 1,322 1,485

Education component 727 875 1,005 1,154

Training component 225 278 317 331

Vocational 31 35 44 48

Technical 37 41 43 42

Universities & colleges 102 107 127 144

Other 55 95 104 97

Note. World Bank (2008b). Vietnam: Higher Education and Skills for Growth. Human Development Department, East Asia and Pacific Region. June 2008. / World Bank (2011). World Development Indicators. Retrieved from: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators6 5 This does not include vocational or technical education, each of which received 3%. 6 World Bank figures for expenditure by Vietnam of education and training do not match statistics

provided by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. For example, total education expenditure in 2000, according to the World Bank was $US 1,153 million (Table 3a). The GSO Vietnam figure for government expenditure on education and training in 2000 is VND 12,677 billion (Table 2b). Using an average exchange rate for 2000 of VND14,164 = $US 1 (average 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2000, OANDA online), the $US equivalent of the GSO Vietnam figure is $US 895 million, a difference of $US 258 million.

50

Table 5: Public spending on higher education, 1999-2002 (% GDP)

1999 2000 2001 2002

GDP 28.68 31.17 32.51 35.08

Total education expenditure 100% 100% 100% 100%

Education component 76% 76% 76% 77%

Training component 24% 24% 24% 23%

Vocational 3% 3% 3% 3%

Technical 4% 4% 3% 3%

Universities & colleges 11% 9% 10% 10%

Other 6% 8% 8% 7%

Note. World Bank (2008b). Vietnam: Higher Education and Skills for Growth. Human Development Department, East Asia and Pacific Region. June 2008. / World Bank (2011). World Development Indicators. Retrieved from: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators

Increased government investment into higher education provided incentives

and opportunities for the education system to develop and improve, but funding

on the scale necessary was limited and tended to focus on building a physical

infrastructure and providing access to students. After the introduction of đổi mới,

higher education underwent rapid expansion despite budgetary constraints.

Increased growth, scarcity of land, and high rates of literacy inherited as a legacy

of socialist times, fuelled an increase in school enrolment, mostly from poor

families into lower quality institutions. Between 1999 and 2007, enrolment in

higher education rose 72.5 % from 893,000 to 1,540,000 (Runckel 2009). At

roughly the same time, from 2000 to 2008, the number of higher education

institutions more than doubled from 153 to 369 (Vietnam 2006a: 3). There were

63 universities and 38 colleges in 1987, which increased to 150 universities and

226 colleges by 2009. Of the 376 tertiary institutions in Vietnam at present, 295

are public and 81 are private. (Vietnam 2009: 2-3). Competition for spaces is

high. Although 1.2 million students graduate from secondary education each

51

year, there are only enough spaces in higher education institutions to

accommodate around 300,000 (Runckel 2009).

While capital spending increased dramatically, improvements in the quality

of teaching and teaching resources were lagging and practical reforms to higher

education were slow to materialize and insufficient in scope. A 2008 World Bank

report identifies three important concerns for higher education in this context of

rapid development and high demand (World Bank 2008b: xii). First, higher

education is not playing an important role in technical innovation, something that

is characteristic of higher educational institutions in middle-income countries.

Vietnam has attracted significant FDI, but the results such as the number of

patents, spending on research and development, or high technology exports

have shown “a weak capacity to innovate and adapt knowledge” (World Bank

2008b: xv). Second, the higher education system has not been able to close the

gap between a demand for people with technical, managerial and workplace

skills and a sufficient supply of competent people with these skills. In most upper

and many middle-income countries, students are enrolled in a fairly diverse

range of fields. In Vietnam, however, almost 50 % of all students are enrolled in

economic/business or education and only 15 % in science or technology (World

Bank 2008b: xxii-xxiii). Companies have reported difficulties in filling positions

and many new employees have required significant retraining or further

supplementing of skills (World Bank 2008b: xix). Third, Vietnam is still not

providing equitable access to higher education to talented but poorer students,

which means that good prospects are being missed. Students from socially and

52

ethnically marginalized groups, often from poorer areas of the country that have

fewer universities and colleges (as well as lower quality primary and secondary

schools), are less able to access higher education. Universities, the report

states, can play an important role in regional economic development (World

Bank 2008b: xxi).

The World Bank makes several suggestions for encouraging a diverse

education: (1) different degree options, e.g. shorter and longer degrees; (2) a

greater variety of fields; (3) more diverse instructional methods and pedagogical

techniques; (4) a greater mix or public and private as well as domestic and

foreign providers; (5) a tiered system with development of ‘elite’ institutions for

high quality education and research; and (6) improved university-industry

linkages (World Bank 2008b: xxi-xxv). The economic focus is evident in the

suggestions, for example, the report does not discuss the value of universities

engaged in local collaborative planning or participatory development.

2.3 Problems and barriers

The structure of Vietnam’s higher education is derived from the communist

Soviet-style system. Despite the idea of centralized control, the education

system comprised a large number of separate specialized institutions reporting

to separate line ministries with little autonomy and a weak linkage between

teaching and research (Kelly 2000). The Ministry of Education and Training

53

(MOET)7 was formed in 1990 to take responsibility for most education matters

including educational planning, curricula planning and content, enrolment,

academic assessments, infrastructure and maintenance of facilities, and

management of budgets and human resources, although it shared responsibility

for broader decisions on policy, target setting, and sectorial financing with the

Office of the Government (Kelly 2000, Runckel 2009).

Inter-ministerial rivalry may be a source of some of the problems in higher

education. Abuza (1996) describes the animosity that developed between the

Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(MFA) when the U.S. Fulbright scholarship programme was introduced in the

1990s, as well as an insight into the political machinations at work behind

international education. The MoET demanded control because it was the

education ministry; the MFA argued that student exchanges were a political and

diplomatic responsibility. The Harvard Institute of International Development

(HIID) ran the overseas portion of the Fulbright programme. According to Abuza,

HIID disliked the MoET because of its “nepotism, corruption and incompetence”

(Abuza 1996: 626), its advocacy for Marxist-Leninist ideology and its persistence

in recommending well connected but sub-par students for the programme. The

job of the MFA, on the other hand, was to “build working relationships with

foreign counterparts, and as an institution, it [had] a lot more to gain from

working and cooperating with the outside” (Abuza 1996: 626). The HIID thus

7 Originally, three separate bodies were responsible for education provision⎯the Ministry of

Education, the General Department for Vocational Training, and the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Technical Education⎯before the latter two merged in 1987 (Kelly 2000).

54

found it easier to work with the MFA. In the post-war years, and following the

American raising of the trade embargo on Vietnam in 1994, diplomatic

exchanges were important. Education was a gateway for improved relations, as

much political as educational. Why the U.S. introduced the programme “may be

closer to America’s rationale for hosting such a large number of Chinese

students: the prospect that the U.S. will be training, and therefore influencing the

next generations of leadership (Abuza 1996: 624).

2.3.1 A rise in enrolment

As Vietnamese incomes rose, the demand for higher education grew rapidly.

Student numbers increased from 173,000 in 1995 to almost 1.8 million in 2008

(GSO Vietnam 2011; Vietnam 2009: 3). In 2008, 1.54 million students were in

public system and 248,800 students in private institutions (Vietnam 2009: 3). In

1987, there were 63 universities and 38 colleges in Vietnam. By 2009, this had

increased to 150 universities and 226 colleges (Vietnam 2009: 2). There are

more institutions, however, located in or close to urban areas. Although the

number of universities and colleges in rural, mountainous, and poorer areas has

risen, 68 % of universities and 36 % of colleges are located in the five largest

urban centres (Vietnam 2009: 3, 5).

At the same time, there has been only relatively modest growth in faculty,

with the result that the system is increasingly under stress (Harvard 2008: 22). In

public institutions the number of teachers has risen from 22,800 in 1995 to

57,500 in 2008 (GSO Vietnam 2011). The student/teacher ration is high, and this

has contributed to a fall in the quality of education (Runckel 2009).

55

Table 6: Student enrolment and number of teachers in higher education institutions, 1995-2008

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Number of schools(*) (School)

178 191 202 214 230 277 322 369 393

Public 109 96 110 123 131 148 168 179 187 201 243 275 305 322

Non-public 30 23 23 27 29 34 47 64 71

Number of teachers(**) (thousands)

32.3 35.9 38.7 40.0 47.6 48.6 53.4 56.1 60.7

Public 22.8 23.5 24.1 26.1 27.1 27.9 31.4 33.4 34.9 40.0 42.0 45.7 51.3 54.8

Non-public 4.5 4.5 5.3 5.1 7.6 6.6 7.7 4.8 5.9

Number of students(***) (thousands)

899.5 974.1 1020.7 1131.0 1319.8 1387.1 1666.2 1603.5 1719.5

Public 297.9 509.3 662.8 682.3 734.9 795.6 873.0 908.8 993.9 1182.0 1226.7 1456.7 1414.7 1501.3

Non-public 103.9 101.1 111.9 137.1 137.8 160.4 209.5 188.8 218.2 (*) From 2008, include member colleges (**) From 2009, excluding invited teachers (***) From 2009, excluding number of students studying second diploma, distance training, complete knowledge and inter-level diploma

Note: General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011). Statistical Data. Retrieved from http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=491

Table 7: Ratio of students to teachers in higher education institutions, 1995-2008

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Overall (public & private) 27.85 27.13 26.37 28.28 27.73 28.54 31.20 28.58 28.33

Public 13.07 21.67 27.50 26.14 27.12 28.52 27.80 27.21 28.48 29.55 29.21 31.88 27.58 27.40

Non-public 23.09 22.47 21.11 26.88 18.13 24.30 27.21 39.33 36.98

Note: Adapted from General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011). Statistical Data. Retrieved from http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=491

56

Thus, even though the number of institutions has increased, the quality of

the education has not. The poor quality of Vietnamese universities is “not only a

brake on economic growth but is also a source of enormous popular

dissatisfaction and therefore a threat to political stability” (Harvard 2008: 4).

Overall, the poor quality of undergraduate education means students are ill-

prepared for careers or unable to compete effectively for post-graduate work

overseas: up to 50 % of Vietnamese students have been unable to find

employment in their areas of specialization after graduating (Vallely & Wilkinson

2008: 2; Harvard 2008: 22). A major reason for not finding employment is that

they don’t possess the right or sufficient skills. Many companies have had

difficulties finding graduates to do the work because candidates have neither the

practical nor general skills necessary. This has been most evident in graduates

of technology, business administration, manufacturing and processing (World

Bank 2008b: xix).

The government regulates salaries and professional allowances (Vietnam

2005c: Article 81). Instructors are underpaid and with few prospects of raising

their salaries incentives to improve their teaching are minimal. Good data on

teaching salaries in higher education is difficult to find: a Harvard report includes

a remark from a Vietnamese commentator: “if official figures regarding spending

on teacher salaries are to be believed, then average salaries would be almost

double their current actual levels (Harvard 2008: 22). Salaries are so low that

university teachers often have to supplement their incomes on the side (Vallely &

Wilkinson 2008: 4) taking more of their time and energy. The central government

57

maintains control over student enrolment rates and (in public universities) faculty

remuneration, so there are few incentives for educational institutions to innovate

or compete for instructors.8 Consequently, the unattractive conditions dissipate

the enthusiasm for teaching and dissuade graduate or post-graduate students

from considering careers in academia (Vallely & Wilkinson 2008) and

Vietnamese professors and other academics living overseas have little incentive

to return. Indeed, the 2008 Harvard report notes that a scientist with foreign

teaching and research experience was recently offered VND 800,000 ($US 50)

per month to return to Vietnam (Harvard 2008: 23 [footnote]). Advancement and

hiring criteria depend on seniority rather than merit. Corruption is rife: degrees

can be purchased, promotion is often based on personal connections, and many

top-level officials are non-English speaking products of Soviet-era training

(Vallely & Wilkinson 2008).

It may be of little surprise then that Vietnamese universities have an

undistinguished record of academic achievement. A lack of funds and poor

facilities makes it difficult for academics to pursue research (Huong & Fry 2002:

139). A lack of English language skills among academics means they are unable

to participate in global discourse and knowledge exchange (Rizvi 2005:45;

Harvard 2008:23 [footnote]). Weak links between universities and industry

reduces opportunities for investment (Huong 2009: 3). Few professors and

lecturers at Vietnam’s best universities have articles published in peer-reviewed

journals (Vallely & Wilkinson 2008). With little connection to international peer

8 Vietnamese universities, for example, do not have the authority to promote faculty to the level

of assistant or full professor. (Harvard 2008, p. 23)

58

circles, academics are isolated from the flows of international knowledge

creation and their ability to keep current is restricted. In 2002, for example,

Vietnam filed for a total of two patents with the World International Property

Organization (Harvard 2008). “In 2006, the 2,830 faculty members at Thailand’s

Chulalongkorn University published 744 articles in international scientific

journals. During the same period the 3,360 faculty members at Vietnam National

University in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City published 36 articles” (Harvard

2008:22, footnote).9 Funding of public institutions is not tied to performance or

quality nor are they evaluated according to international standards. As well,

investment is often misguided. For example, plans for the Vietnamese Academy

of Science and Technology (VAST) to be the centrepiece of a new technical

university, despite its faculty having only 41 articles published in 2006, suggests

investment decisions are made on grounds other than intellectual rigour or

academic record (Harvard 2008: 23).

Part of the problem may be that Vietnam’s research capacity was set up

following an old Soviet model in which research institutions were separate from

teaching institutions. Vietnam has identified this as a major weakness in its

system and has made efforts to correct it but has faced problems. “The strong

research institutes are justifiably desirous to make contributions to the training

cause, but do not have training management functions therefore, training

processes at these institutes are not conforming” (Vietnam n.d.: 26-27). In

9 Source: Scientific Citation Index Expanded, Web of Science, Thomson Corporation. Quoted by

Harvard 2008.

59

response, Article 18 of the Education Law (2005) pushes for greater cooperation

between research and teaching institutions (Vietnam 2005c: Article 18, 7-8).

Several kinds of public educational institutions have appeared that provide

training services depending on the situation or needs of the student. A đại học

mở is a public open university to which any citizen can apply and attend classes.

A đại học dan lap refers to a private university. At both đại học mở and đại học

dan lap students are required to take national entrance exams, although

admission scores are generally lower than those needed to enter a public

university. Students are also able to attend đại học tại chức, which provides

training programmes for working students. These programmes, provided by

some higher educational institutions, are offered to people who may be older,

poorer, have little previous education or have time commitments that prevent

them attending on a regular or full time basis, but who are keen to acquire higher

education that might increase salary or enhance social standing.

Because remuneration is low and academic freedom is limited, acquiring and

keeping faculty has been difficult. With rapid economic growth and greater

opportunities to travel abroad, Vietnam faces a brain drain of the most promising

educated professionals. Without incentives to remain in Vietnam (pay,

promotion, etc.), many will be unwilling to seek out careers in Vietnam or return

after studying overseas. Even if foreign programmes provide qualifications and

education that satisfy personal educational aspirations of students, a lack of

opportunities for students to use their foreign qualifications and knowledge in

their home country effectively and with appropriate recognition will result in a

60

deficit of important human resources to build a strong public educational system

(Garrett 2005: 100).

The inability of the state to invest effectively (Huong & Fry 2006) has

resulted in declining standards of training, lack of materials, unmotivated faculty,

and poor organizational capacity within its public institutions (UNESCO 1998). A

lack of transparency and poor results limit the ability of educational institutions to

attract funds from donors (Harvard 2008: 50; Huong & Fry 2004: 130). There is

no private philanthropy to institutions because there is no tax structure designed

to reward private donations and create American-styled endowments (Altbach

2004: 25).

2.4 Private provision of education

Limited funds and the inability of quality higher educational institutions to

produce sufficiently trained graduates encouraged the Vietnamese government

to allow private sector involvement in higher education (Huong & Fry 2002: 129).

Private education was considered acceptable by the government, satisfying both

the efficiency and incentive objectives of đổi mới as well as socialist ideals of

building equity and social justice (Huong & Fry 2002: 131). It increased the

number of places available for students when the public system was unable to

accommodate them. Private institutions were expected to compete among

themselves and with public institutions for students and recognition in an effort to

raise quality and increase learning opportunities. However, because privatized

education was expected to fund itself through tuition fees, a greater share of the

costs of education were transferred to consumers. As a result, private higher

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education became dependent on the ability of families to pay (London 2004:

132).

Huong and Fry (2002) describe the development of private higher education

in Vietnam. In 1988, Vietnam’s first private university, Thang Long University,

was opened in Hanoi by a group of Vietnamese and French academics

concerned about the quality of education in the country (Huong & Fry 2002:

131). Tuition was set at $US 100 per academic year and fields of study were

limited to mathematics and information. At first, enrolment was low “because at

the time, in the North, people did not like to send their children to study in private

universities” (Huong & Fry 2002: 131). With little revenue, it was difficult to invest

in infrastructure so it opened a software export centre to help raise additional

funds (Huong & Fry 2002: 131). Despite difficulties, Thang Long proved a good

first effort and other institutions followed suit including Dong Do University and

Phuong Dong University in Hanoi, and Van Lang University in Saigon (Huong &

Fry 2002: 132). Most early institutions offered study in fields such as business

administration, languages and accounting that did not require expensive or

complex facilities (Huong & Fry 2002: 132). In some of the institutions student

numbers rose quickly. Van Lang University enrolled 4,700 students in its first

year. Despite rising popularity, and its encouragement of private institutions,

MoET decided to restrict enrolment to only 800-1,500 students per year (Huong

& Fry 2002: 132).

Huong and Fry conclude that Vietnam’s policy to develop a mixed system of

higher education “appears wise and sound” (Huong & Fry 2002: 140). In light of

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no public funding, tuition fees became the main source of income, yet many of

the institutions have been able to build extensive facilities of classroom,

laboratories and libraries. Quality of teaching is rising, student’s services are

growing, and more private institutions are engaging in international cooperation

(Huong & Fry 2002: 135). Vietnam’s Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA)

aims to have 40 % of students attending non-public institutions by 2020 (Vietnam

n.d.: 10; Varghese 2007: 12). Still, many of the same problems as the larger

public institutions have appeared: not enough instructors, poor pedagogy and

low pay, in part because they are drawing upon the same pool of national talent.

Private education also attracts many dubious institutions. Known as ‘diploma

mills’, they are usually unlicensed or fail to meet regulations, yet still openly

advertise high-end degrees such as ‘American MBAs’. Despite charging as

much as $US 3,500, they attract many students, enticed by the prospects of

obtaining a foreign degree without having to know English (VietnamNet Bridge

2010). An investigation by Thanh Nien News, a publication of the Vietnam

National Youth Federation based in Hanoi, found two U.S.-based institutions,

Southwest American University and Adam International University, were

unaccredited in the U.S., yet offered 10-month MBA programmes for $US 4,000

to Vietnamese students. English language skills were not required and

attendance was low (Thanh Nien News 2010).

Legitimate educators are concerned about these kinds of programmes and

encourage the authorities to be more vigilant. Degrees awarded by these

unaccredited institutions are worthless abroad yet Vietnamese authorities but

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they appear to be unable or unwilling to enforce the laws (Thanh Nien News

2010). The Education Law (Vietnam 2005c) regulates the national education

system (Article 1) and outlines requirements, content and standards for

education in general, and higher education (Article 40) and international

cooperation (Articles 107-110) specifically. The state will organize and manage

educational quality assurance and accreditation (Article 99) and the MoET will be

responsible for directing the implementation of educational quality accreditation

(Article 17). But Article 58 states that among the functions and rights of schools

are “to conduct quality self-evaluation and is [sic] subject to accreditation by

competent quality accreditation agency” (Article 58). An April 2010 memo to the

MoET by the Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) expressed its concern with

criticisms of excessive numbers of non-public and private universities with “poor

quality, bad facilities, and low entrance requirements” (VBF 2010: 1). The VBF

argues that the problem is not the number of institutions but their quality, which

is the responsibility of MoET to address. As a result, the VBF suggests MoET

“needs to be an effective player to enforce regulations in order to ensure the

quality of higher education services (VBF 2010: 1).

If Vietnam has so much potential (demand and capacity) with respect to

culture, literature, scientific, and technical ability, why does it has such poor

universities and low quality of students (Dapice 2006: 16)? The problem,

according to Dapice (2006) seems to lie in an archaic system that resists

change, funding is inefficient and poorly distributed, few incentives are created

for institutions or staff, a standardized curriculum is not customized for sector or

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student ability, the development of research centres is obstructed, and

competition with the public system from private schools is discouraged (Dapice

2006: 16). Privatization, though, is only one part of a three-pronged strategy

Vietnam is pursuing for its higher education: i) increase public investment in

higher education; ii) encourage private investment and further privatization of

higher education; and iii) encourage further foreign investment in higher

education (Welch 2010: 204). Many higher educational institutions are interested

to be part of Vietnam’s educational development.

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CHAPTER 3: TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIETNAM

3.1 Forms of transnational education

Transnational higher education in Vietnam takes one of four forms, based on

the types of international trade in services defined by GATS:

1. Consumption abroad - in which a student travels to another country to

study at a foreign institution;

2. Partnerships (Movement of natural persons) - in which a foreign educator

will temporarily enter a country to teach a course or programme;

3. Commercial presence - in which a foreign educational institution will

establish a physical presence (branch campus) in a country;

4. Cross-border distance education - in which a student accesses education

remotely, most often in present times through the Internet.

(UNESCAP 2000: 13; Varghese, 2007; Verger 2010: 50-1)

Cross-border distance education does not occur in Vietnam. Vietnam has

not made any commitments to cross-border education in GATS although

distance education is employed within the country.

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3.1.1 Consumption abroad

In various forms, transnational education has been an important element in

Vietnam’s education policy since before đổi mới. In early educational exchanges,

Vietnam concentrated on sending economic planners, bureaucrats, and policy

makers to other communist countries to study, primarily in the Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe. Later exchanges targeted science and technology in non-

communist countries. In addition to knowledge and technology transfer,

cooperation exchanges helped establish overseas networks, fund facilities, and

integrate Vietnam into the global system of higher education.

With what little resources were available directed towards primary and

secondary education, there was meagre funding to develop higher education.

Both before and after the war years of the late 1970s, Vietnam relied extensively

on its political links with Communist countries of Eastern Europe to provide

educational resources and training in order to plug gaps in its higher education

system. In the forty years between 1951 and 1990, over 6,783 doctors, 34,000

university students and 72,000 technical workers were sent for training in the

Socialist bloc (Abuza 1996: 619).

The fall of Soviet communism in the late 1980s was a major loss of financial

support to Vietnam. Political upheavals in the Soviet Eastern bloc and in China

reportedly made Vietnam leaders nervous about sending students overseas

(Abuza 1996: 621). Policy changes made by the Central Committee of the

Vietnamese Communist Party in 1990 severely restricted student exchanges,

but, as Abuza notes, this did not affect exchanges with Western countries: “The

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leadership clearly considered the impact of the collapse of the communist parties

on its students a greater danger than the bourgeois ‘spiritual pollution’ they might

acquire from the West” (Abuza 1996: 622). It seems it was less the growing

economic progress of developed counties than evidence of its own failures to

advance that concerned Vietnamese authorities.

Changes in the world order forced changes within Vietnam and was a

turning point in the structure of international student exchanges. Vietnam relied

heavily on foreign funding such as scholarships to send students for training

abroad and changes in educational policies on students travelling abroad were

enacted that reflected the progressive elements of the Vietnamese Communist

Party interest in focusing on economic development. While the numbers allowed

to travel was significantly cut back, changes to the criteria for selecting students

defined clearly what fields of study would be allowed, refocused criteria from

those with political affiliations to those who showing academic promise, and

allowed direct university to university exchanges (Abuza 1996: 623-624).

Estimates of the number of Vietnamese who study abroad vary. Runckel

(2009) calculates that 60,000 Vietnamese study abroad annually (Runckel

2009)10 with most going to the United States. Welch (2010) on the other hand

states that approximately 15,000 Vietnamese travel abroad annually for an

education (Welch 2010: 202). According to the International Institute for

Education (2010), between 2009 and 2010, the number of Vietnamese students

travelling to the U.S. for education increased 2.3 % from 12,823 to 13,112, down 10 Runckel (2009) cites the Foreign Press Centre and statistics from the Ministry of Education

and Training (MoET).

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from 46.2 % the year before (Institute for International Education [IIE] 2010).

Alternatively, in the 2008-2009 academic year, 672 Americans studied at

Vietnamese institutions (IIE 2009).

Table 8: Number of Vietnamese students studying in the U.S., 2000-2010

Year # students from VN % Δ from previous year

2009/10 13,112 2.3

2008/09 12,823 46.2

2007/08 8,769 45.3

2006/07 6,036 31.3

2005/06 4,597 25.3

2004/05 3,670 16.0

2003/04 3,165 16.3

2002/03 2,722 7.5

2001/02 2,531 25.2

2000/01 2,022 -10.8

Note. Institute of International Education (2010). Open Doors Fact Sheet: Vietnam. Retrieved 6 June 2011 from http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/Data/Fact-Sheets-by-Country.aspx

Travelling abroad to study is supported by the Vietnamese government and

is popular with students looking to gain access to technologies, knowledge, and

skills that may be unavailable in the Vietnam. The long-term support to students

travelling abroad is evidence of government expectations and confidence in the

value of the international exchange, seeing students as potential gatherers of

knowledge in a manner like bees returning to the hive with pollen. Programmes

such as the Vietnam International Education Development (formerly 322)

programme provide funding of about VND 100 billion per year for about 450 top

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students annually to travel overseas (Welch 2010: 204).11 For this kind of

funding, the government expects some return: funding to students to travel

abroad can be a major export of capital, hence the government makes efforts to

ensure that students who do go abroad return so that their investment brings

benefits to the country. Students, however, do not always appreciate this

restriction. In December 2009, Vietnamese students objected to a draft decree

that limited students who receiving financial assistance to study abroad to

working abroad for no more than three years after graduation, and to pay income

tax (lookatvietnam, 2009).

3.1.2 Partnerships

Some foreign universities work in cooperative arrangements with

Vietnamese universities providing teaching, technical, and human support to

educational programmes in the country. This form, also called ‘movement of

natural persons’ by GATS or ‘twinning’ by some commentators (Welch 2010:

208; Marginson 2009: 8; Knight 2006: 14; Ziguras 2003: 103), is popular among

foreign institutions that may not have the funding or capability to open their own

branch campus or are testing their programmes in Vietnam before committing to

a long-term venture. Working with prestigious foreign universities is encouraged

among Vietnamese institutions to improve educational management, teaching,

research, encourage investment, and create competitive institutions recognized

as regionally and internationally advanced (Vietnam n.d.: 13).

11 Welch cites figures from the Annex to Vietnam’s 2005 Higher Education Reform Agenda, p.

73. According to VIED factsheet, an estimated 700 graduate students were selected to take part in the 2009-2010 VIED programme (Vietnam International Education Development n.d.).

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Vietnam’s commitments to GATS specify “that educational services are

bound only for some sectors: technical, natural sciences and technology,

business administration and business studies, economics, accounting,

international law and language training fields” (Vietnam & EU 2007: 98). Most

concentrate on providing one or more degree programmes, either at the

graduate or the undergraduate level. Some offer what is known as a sandwich

programme (Vietnam n.d.: 15; Huong 2009: 11), whereby a student spends a

period abroad studying at the foreign institution in between terms at home in

Vietnam. Other partnerships between industry and universities provide funding

and learning opportunities to top students. Scholarships of over $50,000 funded

by Intel, for example, enable selected students to travel to Australia for advanced

technical training (VietnamNews 12 July 2010).

A collaborative venture between the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague,

Netherlands and two Vietnamese universities, Hanoi Economics and Ho Chi

Minh Economics Universities was initiated in 1994. The two Vietnamese partners

shared approximately $US 3 million to operate a two-year programme for 60

graduates. Since then, support from the Dutch partner has ceased, but the

programme continues, albeit as a part-time programme taught in English for

local or international students (Welch 2010: 208). Another example is an

agreement between the Open University of HCMC and the Solvay Business

School of the Free University of Brussels to establish a Master programme in

General Management aimed at strengthening the link between international and

Vietnamese companies. Belgian professors teach the programme and both

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MoET and the Free University recognize the graduate degree (Welch 2010:

208). Other partnerships include a programme between Houston Community

College and the Saigon Institute of Technology that was originally designed to

offer certificates and applied science degrees related to computer science

technology to college students attending Saigon Tech. In 2006, it was expanded

to include accounting, business management, international business, marketing,

and GIS (Houston Community College n.d.). In 2008, the University of Missouri

and the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (MARD) signed

an MOU to expand academic and research collaboration in the field of

agricultural biotechnology. The memorandum provides for faculty and student

exchanges between Vietnamese institutions and the University of Missouri, as

well as scientific exchanges and workshops on various topics related to

biotechnology. MARD agreed to fund Masters and Doctorate students

specializing in areas such as plant science, animal science and forestry (United

States Embassy 2008).

Establishing relations and working out programmes, however, can be

complex and time-consuming. The reputation of the provider is a major

marketing tool for educational institutions providing learning programmes

because it increases the value of partnerships in which a local institution teams

up with a foreign provider to offer courses and qualifications. Foreign institutions,

however, keen to preserve their reputations, want to be sure that the Vietnamese

institutions with which they partner have adequate facilities and national

credibility (McBurnie & Ziguras 2007: 5). McBurnie and Ziguras (2007) suggest

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prestige will be a growing factor in institutional behaviour (McBurnie and Ziguras

2007: 3). Vietnamese institutions share the same concerns; as we have seen,

higher education attracts many dubious outfits from overseas. Despite

considerable potential, however, Overland (2009) states that 80 % of signed

agreements come to very little: bureaucratic or other snags scuttle most ventures

and the financial returns to investment are small (Overland 2009).

In addition to educational institutions, several businesses such as Capstone

Vietnam and Runckel & Associates offer student recruitment, networking,

training, learning materials, and other services promoting international education

and institutional linkages in Vietnam.

Table 9: Advantages and disadvantages of collaborative transnational arrangements between foreign and local partners

Local partner Foreign partner

Advantages - can provide programmes it could not on its own

- capitalize on demand - spread risk - ‘halo effect’ of an international partner - twinning opportunities

- foot in the door in a foreign market - increased revenue stream - less financial risk than establishing a

branch campus

Disadvantages - foreign partner can fail - increased competition with local

partners to host students - ‘halo effect’ can be negative if

reputation of foreign partner is poor - may be treated as a junior partner

- local partner can fail - increased competition with foreign

partners to host students - less potential revenue than with a

branch campus - damage to reputation from

inappropriate local partner

Note. McBurnie, G. & Ziguras C. (2007). Transnational Education: Issues and trends in offshore higher education. Abingdon UK: Routledge.

The prestige of education and a bias (perhaps fuelled by some laziness

among Vietnamese students) mean that students perceive different kinds of

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institutions differently. Both for-profit and non-profit foreign education providers

are required to be accredited in their home countries. Even so, accredited

foreign institutions offering programmes in partnership with well-known

Vietnamese institutions are often considered second choices, popular only with

students who are not able to enter one of the low-cost public universities where

they do not have to work as hard (Overland 2010).

3.1.3 Commercial presence

Setting up a commercial presence in Vietnam is less common. Although the

country is an attractive market for transnational education, the investment risks

for foreign institutions can be daunting: the financial costs involved are high,

expanding into different subjects is limited, and the returns on investment can

take decades to realize. In addition, foreign experts and professors are often

unwilling to leave advanced facilities in their home country to teach at a branch

campus (Altbach 2010: 2). Branch campuses can consider resorting to local

expertise, but it can be difficult to find instructors given the low educational

standards in Vietnam. It also negates the draw for students who expect a course

led by foreign educators who are more qualified than local ones (McBurnie &

Ziguras 2007: 66).

Only two foreign universities so far have set up branch campuses in

Vietnam: the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and Vietnamese-

German University (VGU). RMIT evolved from bilateral relations between

Australia and Vietnam as early as 1994 and eventually opened in 2001 (Welch

2010: 206). RMIT in Australia is known as a highly internationalized university so

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its facility in Vietnam was part of a larger international expansion (Welch 2010:

207). RMIT saw establishing a presence in Vietnam as an opportunity to train not

only Vietnamese students, but also students from other countries in the region

as well as to provide international opportunities to its Australian students (Welch

2010: 208). In addition to its Vietnam operation, RMIT strengthens its strategic

ambitions through partnerships with other higher education institutions in the

region such as the Singapore Institute of Management, the Vocational Training

Council of Hong Kong, and the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade (Australian

Universities Quality Agency [AUQA] 2009: 25). In addition, it was an opportunity

to use information technology to promote reform in other local institutions whose

facilities were poor (Welch 2010: 207).

RMIT operates two campuses in Vietnam, one in Saigon and one in Hanoi.

In 2009, 5,102 students were enrolled in Saigon supported by 250 academics

staff, while the campus in Hanoi served 902 students supported by 85 staff.

About half of the students in Saigon were taking English language courses

(AUQA 2009: 22). All academic staff, from Australian and other countries, were

required to complete a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning as a

condition of their employment (AUQA 2009: 22). The Saigon campus is large

and modern whereas the facilities at the Hanoi campus were more restrictive,

noisy and less conducive to learning. IT links between the two campuses were

restricted and unreliable (AUQA 2009: 23). MoET recognizes RMIT’s

programmes in Vietnam: Ministry staff visit its Vietnam campuses annually and

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require RMIT to demonstrate how its Vietnamese and Australian programmes

are of equitable standards (AUQA 2009: 24).

In 2009, the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) audited RMIT

Vietnam’s internationalization programme. Overall, the audit commented

favourably on RMIT’s commitment to internationalization, in particular its Global

Passport concept that “promotes staff and student mobility and portability of

qualifications” (AUQA 2009: 18). It concluded that overall RMIT’s commitment

and progress to internationalization was positive and while its Vietnam campus

has yet to reach its full potential as an Asian hub, two-way links between

Vietnam and Melbourne and with other Asian partners are strengthening (AUQA

2009: 24).

The risks of investment are not only borne by the foreign institutions though.

The Vietnam-Germany University was founded in 2008 and designed to import

German study programmes and teaching staff with the aim to eventually become

a fully-fledged research institute focusing on engineering and sustainable

development (Vietnamese-German University 2011). The Vietnamese

government has agreed to fully subsidize the Vietnamese-German University

(VGU) initially for ten years, after which it will reduce its support to 40 % and the

VGU would have to secure the balance of funding on its own (VietnamNews, 4

June 2010). In 2009, Vietnam proposed requiring a minimum investment of $US

15 million for a foreign institution to set up in Vietnam (VietnamNet 2009). While

aiming to set criteria for investment and ensure that institutions honour their

commitments, there are few institutions that have either the financial capacity or

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willingness to risk an investment in a country where future prospects are so

uncertain. Even countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, that at one time had

numerous ties to foreign institutions, gradually reduced reliance on foreign

education providers as their domestic institutions improved, reducing

international partnerships and supporting the efforts of their own domestic

institutions to attract foreign students (Garrett 2003: 75).

The experiences of some partnerships and branch campuses underscore

the risks involved. In 1996, RMIT established a partnership in Malaysia with a

local corporation to offer courses and degrees in technology subjects. When the

partner suffered extensive losses during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, RMIT

had to write off about $Aus 2.3 million in fees it claimed the Malaysian partner

owed it (McBurnie & Ziguras 2007: 40-1). The California-based University of La

Verne was forced to close its campus in Athens, Greece, after facing bankruptcy.

La Verne agreed in exchange to provide up to 600 students equitable tuition and

housing at its home campus (McBurnie & Ziguras 2007: 41). Monash University,

the largest university in Australia, invested $Aus 55 million in purchasing land

and building the facilities for a campus in South Africa. Originally expected to

generate revenue for its home university, all financial risk was borne by the

university based on estimated returns, but its business plan did not pan out.

Instead of abandoning it, however, Monash decided to convert it to a non-profit

development-focused branch campus wholly funded by its parent Australian

institution (McBurnie & Ziguras 2007: 42-4). This was only possible though

because Monash was large enough and had sufficient funds to carry the cost.

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Altbach (2010) writes that there is much that is unclear about branch

campuses, which makes him ask why a university would invest in such a market

considering the risks. In his view, branch campuses are unsustainable because

they not real campuses, but stripped-down offshoots offering limited

programmes. First, there is the difficulty of finding quality committed instructors

of same calibre as home who are willing to relocate overseas where research

opportunities are less (Altbach 2010: 2). Second, he questions if foreign

institutions are able to create a student body of equivalent selectivity and quality

as in their home countries (Altbach 2010: 2). The status of an institution is in a

significant way a reflection of the dynamism of the students that attend it, whose

demands and activism contribute to a strong learning environment. Finally, the

limited curricula do not replicate the home institution to same degree. He offers

two examples: the University of Liverpool’s China campus has been asked to

refocus its programmes in that country to match its status as a research-led

university in the UK. Officials in Singapore did not feel John Hopkins’ medical

programme in that country was reaching promised goals, so it was cancelled

(Altbach 2010: 2). The message is that China and Singapore were not willing to

simply be a natural resource for foreign educators to mine in the hope that some

knowledge may trickle down. They expected the same quality and diversity as

the institutions gave in the home countries, much as we would expect an

international hotel chain to possess a certain standard in all its locations. In the

case of RMIT, however, the Australian Universities Quality Agency provides an

audit by an independent Australian body that aims to ensure that RMIT

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maintains an acceptable level of service and quality to transnational education

and supports of the expectations of foreign students.

3.2 Higher education policy

A review of Vietnam’s education policy provides some insight into the

objectives and expectations of transnational education. When Vietnam joined the

World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007, it made commitments to allow trade in

higher educational services, but limited instruction to the fields of technical,

natural sciences and technology, business administration and business studies,

economics, accounting, international law, and language training (Vietnam & EU

2007). In response to GATS, countries such as Vietnam are employing a variety

of means to control foreign educational institutions such as licensing

requirements, quality assurance mechanisms or simply prohibition (UNESCAP

2000: 14). For example, the Vietnamese government has committed to allowing

students to travel abroad to study, but it does not allow cross-border distance

education. The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) must approve any

content used domestically (WTO 2007: 37). Some countries have deliberately

avoided making any commitments in GATS: in Malaysia, new private institutions

and foreign branch campuses may only be established if invited to do so by the

Minister of Education (Ziguras 2003: 103).

Over the past decade, Vietnamese policy documents have described the

poor state of higher education in the country and itemize the challenges and

tasks required for change. The Education and Training Development Strategy to

Year 2010 produced by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) set out

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reform goals for all levels of education for the period 2001 to 2010 (Vietnam

2001a). Targeted towards a public audience, it assessed the implications of

globalization on the economy, culture, and society and the role of education and

training in narrowing the gap between Vietnam as a “backward agricultural

country with big land” and “developed countries that have achieved high level of

development in science and technology and… are moving forward [sic] a

knowledge economy and an information society” (Vietnam 2001a: 3). The focus

is on the industrialization of the economy and the modernization of society, but it

presented an ambitious post-industrial vision through developing Vietnam’s

knowledge economy, echoing the prognostications of Peter Drucker:

“The achievements of scientific and technological revolution have led to a direct consequence of the formation of knowledge economy. Instead of the natural resource- and labor-based production, knowledge economy will mainly rely on people knowledge. Knowledge economy will change the economic and labor structure. Labor in industrial and agricultural production will reduce and that in service and office areas will increase. Knowledge enterprises will be set up with mainly their white-collar workers” (Vietnam 2001a: 8).

At the same time, it established education as a foundation of a socialist

society based in Marxist-Leninist and Ho Chi Minh thought: “Education and

training plays a leading role in formulating citizens and laborers with their love for

the country and the consciousness of the socialism” (Vietnam 2001a: 13). It

recommended student and academic exchanges (Vietnam 2001a: 21) and

encouraged “international and foreign organizations to establish high quality

education and training institutions in Vietnam” (Vietnam 2001a: 22). With limited

national capacity, for example, Vietnam’s significant investment in funding

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students to travel overseas is evidence of its intent to build local expertise

through import of skills and knowledge in students.

Two areas of policy that encourage transnational higher education can be

defined: ‘investment policy’ that encourages foreign and domestic investment in

transnational education to increase the number and range of institutions, and

‘education policy’ that focuses on ways to resolve problems and improve its own

national higher education system.  

3.2.1 Investment policy

Vietnam’s Education Law12 defines general regulations at all levels of

education in the country. According to the Education Law:

“The goals of educational (sic) are to educate the Vietnamese into comprehensively developed persons who possess ethics, knowledge, physical health, aesthetic sense and profession, loyal to the ideology of national independence and socialism; to shape and cultivate one’s dignity, civil qualifications and competence, satisfying the demands of the construction and defense (sic) of the Fatherland” (Vietnam 2005c: Article 2).

In addition to building moral and political qualities, the Education Law

focuses on outlining general requirements for foreign investment, language

training, joint ventures, and cooperation agreements. MoET is responsible for

approving core programmes and syllabi (Vietnam 2005c: Article 41). People-

founded and private institutions are subject to the same rights as public

institutions (Vietnam 2005c: Article 65). Foreign degrees are recognized

according to MoET regulations (Vietnam 2005c: Article 110).

12 The first Education Law was passed in 1998, but eventually became outdated. Amendments to

the Education Law were passed in 2005.

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The Vietnamese government has made extensive efforts to encourage

foreign education providers through legislation. Decree 06 (2000) encourages

foreign direct investment in educational services, specifying legal and tax

obligations as well as opportunities for preferential tax rates and exemptions. For

example, foreign-invested institutions are subject to a 10 % tax rate for the first

four years and a 50 % tax rate for the second four years (Vietnam 2000: Article

19). To encourage institutions to locate in different areas of the country, special

incentives are provided. An investor is exempt from income tax for a period of

eight years if it invests in a geographical area recommended for tax exemption

status or agrees to transfer all fixed assets to the state after its business is

completed (Vietnam 2000: Article19). Such incentives have been insufficient to

encourage transnational institutions to locate in areas other than urban centres

where large populations of wealthier students are located, supplying institutions

is easier, and foreign staff prefer to live. Not surprisingly, as private Vietnamese

institutions themselves are reluctant to do so. Decree 06 also lists general quality

assurance requirements for foreign invested institutions of higher education:

a) abide by plans for a network of educational institutions;

b) operate with qualified teachers and lecturers;

c) use adequate technical equipment and facilities appropriate to the

level and extent of training to be provided;

d) employ appropriate MOET approved curricula;

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e) possess sufficient capital investment and exercise financial capability

to operate effectively

(Vietnam 2000: Article 11; Vietnam & EU 2007: 100).

According to a 2009 news report, MoET was compiling a draft decree

regulating cooperation with foreign partners to encourage investment in

education at all levels from pre-school to higher education and vocational

training. Higher education institutions would be required to invest $US 7,500 per

student with a minimum total investment capital of $US 15 million, not including

expenses for land use rights (VietnamNet 2009).

Decree 18 (2001) and Circular 14 (2005) are more specific, covering the

provision of higher education by foreign non-profit organizations. Decree 18 also

defines operational and legal conditions, authorization procedures and handling

of violations. An institution wishing to set up in Vietnam must satisfy several

conditions before a permit may be issued: (i) have a legal status in the country,

(ii) possess a charter and (iii) offer educational and/or cultural programmes that

aim “to promote the development of Vietnam’s culture and/or education”

(Vietnam 2001b: Article 5). A different permit and application dossier is required

for joint ventures between Vietnamese and foreign entities, and for independent

establishments in which all costs are borne by the foreign organization (Vietnam

2001b: Article 6,7).

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Circular 14 (2005a) establishes criteria and procedures for foreign

investment in the education sector as specified in Decree 06. It governs the

scope and types of foreign entities allowed to participate in educational activities,

the forms of investment that may take place, such as fully foreign owned, joint

ventures or cooperation agreements, and the conditions and procedures for

establishing educational institutions. It includes curricula that requires that

Vietnamese citizens studying at a foreign owned institution for higher education

“must, in addition to completing the particular training programme of such

establishment, study and obtain a full diploma in Marxist-Leninist philosophy,

Marxist-Leninist political economy, scientific socialism, history of the Communist

Party of Vietnam, and ideology of Ho Chi Minh” (Vietnam 2005a: Article 7). It is

possible, though, that this policy is changing: Vietnam’s Higher Education

Reform Agenda Period 2006-2020 (2006) recommends “fundamental changes”

in the teaching of Marxist-Leninist theories and Ho Chi Minh thought (Vietnam

n.d.: 14). It does not, however, go into any detail what these changes entail.

As noted earlier, Vietnam’s commitments to GATS only allow foreign

education providers to offer training in selected sectors in technical, scientific,

business, administrative and language training and education. Like most

countries, Vietnam has protected primary and secondary education from foreign

involvement. Any sectors that touch on ideological or political topics are off limits.

Restrictions on the topics that can be taught by foreign institutions means they

are limited in the scope of the curricula they can offer. This may be a bit of a

Catch-22 situation, especially for branch campuses, which, as we have seen,

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have been criticized for their inability to provide a broad set of programmes that

reflect their home institutions.

3.2.2 Education policy

The Education and Training Development Strategy to Year 2010 (2001a)

sets out reform targets for all levels of education with a focus on ensuring that

education fulfils both industrial and social expectations: “Manpower with good

knowledge is the most important resource of the modern industry. Thus, to

improve the quality of human resources is the main conditions (sic) for the

economic growth and social development” (Vietnam 2001a: 3).

In 2005, Vietnam announced Resolution 14, the Resolution on

Comprehensive and Fundamental Reform of Higher Education in Vietnam 2006-

2020, an ambitious document that prescribed a series of goals for the higher

educational sector as well as the responsibilities and tasks required to achieve

those goals. Resolution 14 focuses on modernizing the educational system by

improving teaching content and methods and learning conditions, infrastructural

improvements, raising enrolment, staffing, funding, and certification. It

recognizes “international integration” as a means to build capacity and

competitiveness through educational exchanges for students and faculty, attract

foreign training programmes, and adopt policies to create favourable incentives

and conditions for investment by “prestigious tertiary education institutions”

interested in creating a commercial presence in Vietnam or entering into a

cooperation agreement with Vietnamese higher education institution (Vietnam

2005b: 7).

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The Five-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan (2006a) addresses higher

education as part of a ten-year national strategy document for development in

areas such as agriculture, markets, health, defence and minorities plus others.

The Plan specifies a broad range of reforms and changes in education including

expanding international cooperation and improving the education system to a

level comparable with others in the region and the world (Vietnam 2006a: 81). It

recommends tuition fees to cover teaching and learning costs and some

infrastructure investment, but that other fees should be eliminated (Vietnam

2006a: 83). Finally, even though the Higher Education Reform Agenda (2006)

warns of the major challenges of national institutions competing against foreign

providers (Vietnam n.d.: 7), the Five-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan

encourages investment, partnerships, and privatization in higher education,

especially vocational training, as well as international cooperation and the

establishment of fully foreign-owned high quality training institutions in specific

fields (Vietnam 2006a: 83).

The Vietnam Higher Education Reform Agenda for 2006-2020 (n.d.) fleshes

out the goals defined in the Five-Year Socioeconomic Development Plan

(2006a). It reiterates the achievements and weaknesses of the existing system,

but makes clearer links between higher education and socio-economic

development, avoiding the laundry list of tasks itemized in the 2001 Education

and Training Development Strategy. Specifically, the Higher Education Reform

Agenda describes the challenges of globalization:

“…in the context of globalization with the fulfilment of international commitments… and upcoming membership of the World Trade

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Organization (WTO), our country’s economy, society and higher education are facing extremely major challenges: potentially widening gaps between our country and other developed ones; likely serious brain drain, possible incapability of higher education system to compete with the penetration and attraction of higher education institutions in other countries; potential violation in learners’ rights; and possible fading of characteristic features in national culture and traditional values of tertiary education.” (Vietnam n.d.: 7)

Vietnam has made numerous policy changes and strategic plans to improve

higher education and enhance transnational education, but there is an increasing

frustration in the slow-moving bureaucracy of MoET and its partner

governmental departments that hinders progress in educational development.

Vietnamese education policy clearly recognizes the problems the country faces

with higher education and actively encourages transnational higher education as

a remedy through investment and educational policies. As noted earlier, the

difficulty of pursuing both a socialist agenda of social equity at the same time as

abiding by the principles of a market economy is a complex task. Political

systems may be partly at fault: “The national tradition of reaching decisions by

consensus has further complicated the task of the leadership and often led to

rather hazy policy declarations” (Masina 2006: 3). For example, responsibilities

towards implementing Resolution 14 (2005) is divided among the Ministry of

Education and Training (MOET), the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the

Finance Ministry, the Home Affairs Ministry, and the Ministry of Science and

Technology. In total, more than two-dozen line-ministries and specialized

agencies have some role in administering public education institutions in the

country (Kelly 2000). While the World Bank is encouraged by Vietnam’s efforts to

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liberalize higher education, it is concerned that progress is slow. For example,

regulations and procedures for the entry of foreign and private institutions are

lengthy, complex and often contradictory (World Bank 2008b: xxviii). Thus,

despite progressive policies, implementation of change appears hindered by

structural rigidity within a bureaucracy that remains inflexible as new approaches

to higher education are introduced.

In April 2010, the Vietnam Business Forum raised concerns over the

inconsistent application of procedures and a lack of coordination between

ministries in a memo to MoET on education and training issues. The memo

summarized the VBF’s concerns with, inter alia, ineffective quality control of non-

public/private universities, time-consuming and burdensome administrative

procedures, limited university autonomy, and transferability and recognition of

degrees. Specifically they targeted the necessity for new foreign-related

educational institutions to acquire an investment certificate from the department

of Planning and Investment (DPI) and an operation license from municipal

Departments of Education and Training (DOET). “…[o]ften a lack of coordination

between these two departments”, notes the memo, “significantly delays the

granting of such licenses” (VBF 2010: 2). In addition, the VBF requested MoET

establish a pathway for students to move between vocational training and higher

education and improve communications to keep institutions informed of new

policies.

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CHAPTER 4: TRAINING THE DRAGON

4.1 Plotting a path

Throughout Vietnam’s past, its people have valued education for the integrity

and power it brings to its possessor. In colonial times, restricting access to

education was a means by which dynasties or colonizers could control people.

After rebellion and the communist take-over, there was little change; education

was a valued for the individual advantages it bestowed, but control over its

substance was still a form of power for the elite. Vietnam places great weight in

education for its development. Its history and desire for independence has

shown that it has exercised strong political control over the path that education at

all levels, will take.

Globalization opened up Vietnam to the world. It learned that economic

development was needed to become an advanced society, but it also meant

educating people in the skills and ideas of the global society. To acquire that

learning, Vietnam had to reach out beyond its borders, sending people overseas

to learn or bringing foreign educators into the country to teach others. A major

challenge in Vietnam’s transformation has been to respond to economic, political

and social challenges within the country as they integrate into the world market

society. And in to do so, to formulate educational policies and appropriate

regulation so that its people receive the skills and knowledge they need.

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4.2 Government and society

In The Age of Discontinuity (1969), Peter Drucker foresaw major changes in

society. The First World War and the Great Depression were traumatic

experiences for the majority of people. Despite the massive social and political

upheavals after 1913, industrial technology in 1968 was essential unchanged

from before World War I (Drucker 1969: 8). But post-1968, changing patterns of

economic behaviour and systems were causing what he termed ‘discontinuities’,

specifically in the areas of:

i) technologies - new technologies and the industries that employ them;

ii) economic policies - a dynamic world economy in which international

relations between countries replace the earlier class conflicts within

countries;

iii) economic theories - changes in institutions that counter accepted

ideas of government and society and threaten the traditional functions

of government;

iv) knowledge - knowledge as the new capital and resource to govern and

manage a new economy.

Discontinuities, Drucker emphasized in the preface to the 1983 edition of his

book, The Age of Discontinuity, were not the dramatic and violent changes of

revolution, but rather they “tend to develop gradually and quietly and are rarely

perceived until they have resulted in the volcanic eruption or the earthquake”

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(Drucker 1992: xii). But, in his view, they would change the rules by which

society organized its core institutions.

Drucker points to a recent disillusionment of the people with government. In

the 20th century, a period marked by stability and continuity, people believed

rational government could fix the complex problems society faced (Drucker

1969: 214-215). It was believed that private enterprise and business were

motivated only by self-interest and could be corrected by removing opportunities

for self-gain or by nationalization. But in the modern age of discontinuity, in

Drucker’s view, government has not performed as desired; it has become too

big, it tries to do everything and because of this it has become ungovernable as

well as unable to govern. Leaders have become administrators and bureaucrats

with few if any policies or leadership qualities (Drucker 1969: 221). A superfluity

of government agencies has created a bureaucracy comprised of entities

“directed by their own desire for power, their own rationale, their own narrow

vision rather than by national policy” (Drucker 1969: 220). A sovereign state that

cannot manage it own internal affairs can hardly be expected to function

effectively internationally. Riven by discord internally, decisions cannot be made

through negotiation, consultation or agreement, and “[w]hile force has, therefore,

become infinitely more important in the international system, it has become

infinitely less decisive” (Drucker 1969: 224).

Yet even as he critiqued their proliferation and profligacy, Drucker affirmed

that “[n]ever has [government] been needed more than in this pluralist society of

organizations. Never has it been needed more than in the present world

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economy” (Drucker 1969: 225). Government should not expect to do things that

can be done more effectively and efficiently through a corporate model. In what

Drucker terms “reprivatisation”, the tasks that government took on in the last

century, largely as the structure of social life changed, can be done by business

or by non-governmental institutions. What government needs to do, in his view,

is step back from business in order to govern effectively: because business can

make a profit, so it must also run the risk of loss, which the government cannot

do (Drucker 1969: 237). But eliminating the profit motive through nationalization

has been replaced with efforts to remove government entirely from the economic

or social spheres. “The purpose of government is to make fundamental

decisions, and to make them effectively. The focus of government is to focus the

political energies of society… The purpose of government, in other words, is to

govern” (Drucker 1969: 233).

4.3 The challenge of education

Olssen, Codd, & O’Neil (2004) argue that “in order to understand the

production of education policy within individual nation states… it is necessary to

understand the origins and determining influences of that policy in relation to

social, cultural, political and economic forces that transcend the context of its

national production” (Olssen, Codd, & O’Neil 2004: 11). Social and political

values shape ideas on how education is expected to contribute to society.

Macro-economic systems such as neo-liberalism have influenced the

development of education in almost all western developed countries. Masina

(2006), for example, reflects upon the example of state-led development in East

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Asia, noting that Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China have looked to

their democratic neighbours for inspiration on how to change. The transformation

from a state socialist model to a state capitalist model, however, can be very

difficult. “The possibility of successfully picking and choosing elements of ‘state

capitalism’ and fitting them within a strategy of ‘market socialism’ is clearly a

complex endeavour, which might lead to an erosion of the socialist aspirations”

(Masina 2006: 28).

This does not mean that countries are powerless in the face of globalization.

Olssen, Codd, & O’Neill (2004) state that developing countries have the

capacity, in fact the obligation, to assert their autonomy in global political affairs if

they are to thrive and ensure their two main roles: coordinating and providing

social services, and funding, providing, and regulating education “which is not

effectively protected, or provided for, by the institutions of global capitalism”

(Olssen, Codd, & O’Neill 2004: 12,13). Because higher education is an important

part of economic development strategies, it is seen as a profitable investment by

states and individuals (Verger 2010: 43). International organizations have

influenced Vietnamese educational policy and threaten to circumvent national

authority over educational issues. As many opponents of free trade have noted,

“free trade is not really free trade, but a way of enabling the powerful countries to

set the terms of global trade to suit their own agendas and interests” (Verger

2010: xix).

Education can be both a public and a private good. Education not only

provides benefits for the individual, but to the larger society (Kohlrausch & Leuze

93

2007: 198). Despite economic prowess, the mark of a developed market society,

as defined by Polanyi, may be its ability to provide quality higher education.

Changing and developing its higher education system requires reforming not

only its institutions, but its political systems and social goals as well. Perceptions

of education as a public good that has a role beyond increasing individual

advantage and commercial market share means the state has an important role

in fostering development of diverse and quality educational institutions through

setting standards and improving oversight. The high standards of teaching and

access to new and advanced technology and knowledge is a great attraction to a

country such as Vietnam with a problematic higher education system and

desperate to educate a workforce.

The social, political, and economic factors inherent in the global exchange in

higher education are intricately interconnected and can create a tension that

affects how educational policy is formed. Socialist ideology places great

emphasis on social equity, which is under increasing tension from the inequality

that accompanies economic development. No doubt Vietnam is aware of the

massive inequality and crony capitalism that has accompanied China’s economic

transformation (Harvard 2008: 19). Social and economic freedoms are permitted

as long as they do not threaten the political state. In a similar manner,

Vietnamese education policy on transnational higher education seems to be

seeking to find a way of balancing these forces.

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4.4 Moving forward

Vietnam’s commitment to education, despite its flaws, has gained it

accolades internationally. Đổi mới helped create a robust and broadening

economy that has furnished the means to fund higher education, but this has still

not addressed the issues of educational quality, social inequity and bureaucratic

inertia. As Jonathan London (2011) observes, it is important to look beyond the

praise that Vietnam has received for this commitment (London 2011: 2) He notes

three prevailing concerns: (1) even though education is perceived as an

opportunity for a better life, high demand and lack of access can introduce social

inequalities; (2) despite increasing debate, new educational policies rarely seem

to lead to any change; and (3) the quality of education is not keeping pace with

expanding provision of education (London 2011: 2-3). The problems with

Vietnam’s higher education are not a secret: education policy documents are

often introduced with descriptions of the poor state of higher education in the

country and news media regularly publish stories on the problems of the system

and the frustrations of students. Commitments to reform and detailed

discussions on what needs to be done, however, are seemingly endless and do

not seem to address basic structural problems. Positive policy measures are

passed but educational management in Vietnam has not been able to adapt,

instead remaining wedded to a rigid bureaucratic system that promotes

corruption, obstructs change and which results in provision of ineffective higher

education.

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4.5 Models for change

The Economist (2005) suggests that the future of higher education has much

to learn in terms of organization, funding and curricula from the American

system. Government, it says, is both a problem and a vital partner. “The problem

for policymakers is how to create a system of higher education that balances the

twin demands of excellence and mass access, that makes room for global elite

universities while also catering for large numbers of average students, that

exploits the opportunities provided by new technology while also recognizing that

education requires a human touch” (Economist 2005: 2). Effective universities

require sufficient funding. America’s universities are successful for several

reasons: diversity of income sources from state, rich benefactors, corporations,

students and religious organizations. And they are competitive, competing for

students, funding, professors and research. The outcome is a vibrant, flexible

scholarly environment attractive to the best academics the world over. At the

same time, the article warns that the financial payoffs of research has tended to

distract academics from their core purpose of teaching, accentuated by

privatization of research by corporate sponsors that try to restrict academic

freedom.

Second, research can be an advantage but it is not a necessity for a

university. Private institutions do not engage in research largely because they

have neither the instructors with skills to partake in it nor the infrastructure to do

it. What is important however is to ensure that there is a strong link between

research and teaching.

96

The American system, however, has taken decades to develop. Vietnam

seems to be taking a good look at the model and adapting to its own needs.

Vietnam’s experiences with transnational higher education have been central to

its efforts to create an effective national higher education system. Increased

interaction between Vietnamese and international institutions contributes to

capacity building and knowledge exchange and strengthens the Vietnamese

educational system. Even if foreign providers may appear driven by a profit

motive, this does not mean capacity building and knowledge exchange are

absent.

4.6 Conclusion

Since the introduction of đổi mới over twenty years ago, Vietnam has been

exposed to the potential for new ideas, technologies and processes in education.

The country has shown a remarkable ability to innovate and adapt in the face of

globalization, but transnational education presents it with some fundamental

social and political challenges. Investment in transnational higher education

continues to rise and demand has risen from young people keen to improve their

livelihoods. But higher education in Vietnam cannot be examined in isolation: it is

an integral component of a larger socio-economic system. Entrenched interests,

stagnant imaginations and a lack of effective progressive policies hold back its

development.

Transnational education offers numerous opportunities to improve

Vietnamese higher education. It provides valuable opportunities for young

Vietnamese to acquire the skills and knowledge they seek to compete

97

professionally in Vietnam and internationally. It brings in a model of higher

education that is more diverse in funding and decentralized in structure. It taps

into the innovation of market practices and provides opportunities for young

Vietnamese to acquire exactly the skills they need. Recognizing the need to

improve its educational system, Vietnam has taken great steps to encourage

investment and cooperation in transnational higher education. But creating a

welcoming environment for transnational education providers is difficult where

competing economic and social interests collide. No country relies solely on

foreign providers for its higher education needs and sending a substantial

proportion of its students abroad and outsourcing higher education certainly “is

not a strategy for a country approaching 90 million people” (Harvard 2008:53).

Vietnam needs to be vigilant to ensure the benefits of transnational higher

education accrue to society. Higher education policy may need to address a

combination of market efficiencies and innovation with state responsibility to

ensure social equity and distributive justice as well as issues of power in a

globalized world. A quality higher educational system will depend on how well

Vietnam can undertake fundamental structural changes to enact effective

educational policy and enforceable regulation. This is not an easy task. What

happens to Vietnam’s education system as it explores new ideas and methods

will have broad implications in the future in many areas of Vietnamese social,

economic, and political life.

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